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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23430973">A Wolf in Human Clothing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/skele_smol/pseuds/skele_smol'>skele_smol</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A Trope I Never Thought I'd Write, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Full Shift Werewolves, Gentle Romance, Gore, Loup-garou, New Relationship, No Delta-Not How We Saw Them Anyway, Non-Explicit Nudity, Plot, Suspense, Thriller, Violentine, Werewolves, plot heavy, slow burn but not really, world building</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:47:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>23,203</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23430973</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/skele_smol/pseuds/skele_smol</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s so easy to think that this world is a little less dangerous when you’re one of the dangerous things in it,” Violet says quietly. Her words are cryptic as they hang in the air and she slants her gaze over to the brunette. Her mouth tries to smile, but the curve to her lips dies before it can even fully form and she drops her eyes back down to her bare feet, watching her toes press and curl into the furrows. “When the truth is, it isn’t. It just becomes harder and a hell of a lot more dangerous because the stakes are so much higher.”</p><p>Over the years that she’s spent living within in a world hellbent on killing her, Clementine has grown accustomed to feeling scared. Grown to crave that little touch of adrenaline that surges through her body every time that she leaves the school’s grounds or grappled with a walker; it keeps her senses keen and her wits sharp which, in turn, keeps her alive.</p><p>So, why is Clementine so surprised to learn that in a world where the dead still roam, there are other dangerous anomalies existing alongside her and the rest of humanity. And why is she surprised to find herself caught up in the middle of yet another struggle for survival.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clementine &amp; Louis (Walking Dead: Done Running), Clementine/Violet (Walking Dead: Done Running), Louis &amp; Violet (Walking Dead: Done Running), Past Minerva/Violet, background Aasim/Ruby, light Marlon/Brody, suggested Louis/Sophie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>81</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Trial of Teeth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Sooooo. I return with yet *another* new fic. This time it kinda spiralled from a dream I had last week. I've never been one to fall into the werewolf or vampire tropes in any fandom, but I adore werewolves and this gives me an excuse to flex some ideas and develop some personal lore for them.</p><p>I am headed into a month of Camp Nano, a writing challenge month where I have set myself a 30,000-word target. So be prepared for the conclusion of How the Flowers Wilt, Chapter 4 of Delta Dawn, Chapter 4 of To Lose Oneself and possibly another one-shot story to add to my polyamorous series to all drop this month.</p><p>As always, kudos and comments are greatly appreciated. I do my best to respond to each one. And I love to hear from people.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong> <span class="u">A Wolf in Human Clothing.</span> </strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="u"> Chapter. 1: Trial by Teeth. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>With darting dragonflies and the sweetness of bird song threading through the calm and quiet serenity all around her, Clementine smiles softly with relief as the forest hums with life. In the rain-softened mud are hoof prints, the cloven tracks of a stray deer, not as large as a stag but something with enough body mass to make for a plentiful meal for herself and her friends. That is until her eyes fall upon the second set of tracks, paw prints that stop Clementine dead in her own. </p><p>They are fresh, overlapping the scarcely older impressions of the deer in the springy loam and there, indented into the soft peat, she notices a trampled leaf, the tell-tale sign that informs her that the tracks were made after the rain that had fallen only an hour before. She bends down at the knees to take a better look. The prints have four oval toes in front, like a feline or canine, but the size and the claw marks give them away as the latter. She frowns and holds a finger to one of the toe impression for comparison and then straightens.</p><p>The prints are huge. Much larger than any domestic dog that she can recall. Larger even than Rosie’s broad paws. That one single toe had been almost the length of her finger, the soft pad the same width as her palm. </p><p>
  <em> Wolf. </em>
</p><p>Pushing herself back on to her feet, Clementine shakes out her limbs and, moving carefully, she continues her hunt. She knows that there are wolves out here, she’s heard them often enough at night or in the early hours of the morning, but she has yet to see one. In the almost full year that the old boarding school has been her home, the animals have remained elusive and secretive. She has asked her friends about them often, but her questions had never been answered, only brushed aside and ignored. Even when she had spoken to Marlon about them, the teen had simply shrugged her curiosity off; simply telling her that all she needed to know was that the wolves mostly kept to themselves and were good for keeping the walkers away.</p><p>So Clementine had stopped asking her questions.</p><p>Well, she stopped asking Marlon anyway.</p><p>Louis, on the other hand, had been a little more open about what he knew of the secret wolves when she had asked. He had also been more than happy to teach her how to read tracks in the earth and the breaks in the foliage so that she’d know which way to go to avoid the animals while she roamed the forest. And, when she had quietly admitted to him that she would like to see one, her friend had simply laughed and wished her luck before tacking on a teasing comment about how she should stick to her skill set of creeping up on the walkers and deer instead of the wolves.</p><p>
  <em> The smarmy jackass. </em>
</p><p>As she follows the twin trails of prey and predator, she can hear the whimsical song of the river bubbling up ahead of her and can see the dilapidated roof of the old fishing shack peeking through the maze of trees from the corner of her eye. And then, flashing through the light and shadows across the stream is a lean and fluid shape that sends Clementine’s heart rate skyward and herself diving behind the old broken down truck and willing her excited body into stillness. She’s silent as she squats behind the mechanical relic and she allows time to slow around her as she watches, with wide eyes and childlike excitement, the wolf that melts out of the forest shadows and moves toward the water’s edge with a grace that is almost unnatural.</p><p>Her paws are light as they kiss the earth in an easy trot, and her fur is a creamy silvery colour, with burnt sugar tips that concentrate around her twitching ears. She’s a beautiful animal. She is smaller than Clementine had imagined by the size of the paw prints in the earth, but she is elegant as she lowers her head to drink. And as Clementine watches her, she is shocked by the sudden childish urge that swells in her belly and compels her to move closer. Surprised by the hopeful desire to perhaps even pet the wolf. She’s curious to feel how her fingers might sink into the thick, glossy fur around her neck and she wonders if her tail might wag if she were to rub her ears.</p><p>Then, as the teen is lost in her fanciful thoughts, the wind changes and it tickles a path up over the slight sheen of sweat that has settled on Clementine’s skin. Collecting up her scent to dance and twirl with the seasonal warmth; carried upon the gentle summer breeze that ripples across the waters glassy surface, and into the wolf’s twitching nose.</p><p>In the next moment, Clementine’s breath catches in her chest and she finds herself ensnared by the sharp eyes watching her from a delicate canine face. The wolf’s eyes are of springtime mosaics and glow of crystalline waters with the greener hues of a glacial melt and, cocooned within, is the firey light of human intelligence that flares with recognition for the girl.</p><p>For a moment, wolf and human simply stare at each other and that’s all it takes for Clementine’s mind to bring up a  strange thought that stalls the rest of her body.</p><p>
  <em> She knows those eyes. </em>
</p><p>Clementine blinks once, twice and then after the third parting of her lashes, she is left watching the caramel sugar tip of a tail vanishing between the trees, the fronds of deer fern dancing back into place from the wolf’s swift disturbance and the warm summery breeze.</p><p>“No, wait. <em> Wait! </em>” In her haste, Clementine’s feet slide and slither beneath her as she pushes herself into a run over the slippery pebbles. The deer that she’d been hunting since dawn, as well as her bow and arrows, now forgotten in favour of following the mysterious wolf out into the wilds.</p><p>The chase that ensues isn't an easy one for Clementine, nor would it be for any bipedal creature for that matter. It isn’t out on the open paths and flat trails that she’s used to, instead, it’s one filled with one carefully calculated move after another. The grounds of these forests are eccentric and wild; sometimes entirely transforming into dangerous rises from the remains of trees -that had fallen over the generations- that then descend suddenly into muddy swamp puddles. Already Clementine’s lungs ache with each scorching breath that burns into her chest, and her legs burn and sting with each clumsy stride and footfall thumping down hard against the earth. </p><p>But for the wolf, the forest is her kingdom. Her paws easily find the secret trails she and her kind have forged over the years; fitting her toes into the same depressions already made and cutting through fern and thicket in a straight path that conserves her energy and maintains her speed. Her ears flick and swivel, monitoring the human girl’s fumbling pursuit of her. She’s close still, the smell and tang of human sweat dominate her senses over the sweet scent of damp loam and wet leaves and she can hear the girl’s breathing as it rattles furiously in her throat, and she follows how the terrain, crunching beneath her boots, switches from brush to rock.</p><p>Clementine has never come this far out into the forest before, she doesn’t recognize the trail that she runs as it snakes around the trees and disappears from sight over a craggy rise. It’s well worn but narrow and broken up with knotted roots and branches that hang overhead, dappling the sunlight as they twist and battle against each other in their quest for more warming touches until they come together in an archway of green and stippled gold. The warmth and humidity, still trapped beneath the thick canopy of the forest, makes her feel sticky like she’s suffocating in her own skin and when she tries to swallow her throat is so dry that it burns. And, as her sweat beads across her heated flesh and rolls down her temples to sting her eyes, the wolf breaks from the bushes to stand and stare at her with the summer’s golden rays caramelizing the very ends of her silhouette.</p><p>She’s so close this time that Clementine could probably reach out and touch her with the very tips of her fingers, but she doesn’t. She simply gazes back, her own tawny amber eyes wide and her breath soft as she whispers. “I know you, don’t I?”</p><p>The wolf snorts and dances on her toes. The ripple of lean muscle under her fur moves in a way that almost looks like the shrugging of her shoulders, and the silver-green eyes that watch her flash with similar human emotion.</p><p>For a fleeting moment, that troubling little feeling of recognition in the back of Clementine’s thoughts surges closer to the forefront. But it’s only for that moment because, in the next one the perked ears twitch, the right one angling itself almost backwards, tracking a sound that flanks them- a sound that Clementine’s own ears can’t yet follow. And then the wolf is gone again, diving into the dense undergrowth across from the spot that she had emerged from and taking flight once more.</p><p>“Really? More running?” Clementine grumbles to the empty clearing. As she glances around and tries to familiarize herself with her surroundings, the full realization, as well as the consequences of her reckless pursuit of the wolf through the forest sinks in- she’s lost. The pit of Clementine’s stomach stirs in frustration and she groans to herself as she pushes into a jog. Almost immediately the stitch in her side reignites and tightens the muscles in her chest and, from the corner of her eye, where the thickets thin out and the trees scatter, she spots the fluid movements of the pale wolf weaving in and out of the wilds. “Don’t you ever get tired?”</p><p>Almost as though to prove a point, the animal throws herself into a sprint and vanishes from sight, barking once as she leaves Clementine trailing alone with her exhausted limbs and stumbling pace. “Show off.”</p><p>Although she doesn’t see her through the wild swirls of greens and browns of the forest, Clementine knows that the wolf is still nearby. Every few yards, she catches the little swayings of dancing bushes and hears the steady percussion of paws striking the ground and keeping pace a little ahead of her. There is one unsettling moment where the gentle sounds turn silent and the stench of rot sours the air, and the girl’s feet actually stumble to a stop when the warning growls and low moan of confrontation drifting on the breeze escalate into the savage snarls of battle. A battle that abruptly ends with a high and sharp yelping cry and the wet crunching sounds of teeth through flesh that leaves Clementine with slick palms and a cold fist in her chest.</p><p>This time, when the underbrush ripples around her and unsure of what might push through the tangles of fern and bramble in the next moment, Clementine reaches for her knife. With her heart pounding in her ears and her pulse throbbing behind her eyes, Clementine adjusts her grip and lowers herself into a fighting stance; ready to defend herself as the fist that clutches her blade rises to chest height and the sun winks wickedly off of the sharp killing edge.</p><p>A liver coloured nose pokes through the brambles first and the long cream muzzle, lightly stained with the reddish-brown of stagnant blood, quickly follows the twitching organ. Dilute peridot eyes that are framed by an angular canine face and topped with rounded ears the hue of burned sugar come next and, finally, the wolf’s long and lithe body follows; ending with her thick tail- its tip dipped in that unique caramel blonde colour of hers, trailing behind. She pauses, tilts her head toward Clementine and utters a low “wuffing” sound from her chest and then she simply slinks past the girl and pads through to a clearer trail.</p><p>Clementine watches her curiously as she slips her knife back into the sheath buckled to her thigh and frowns. The wolf is moving differently, her steps are stiffer than before and her pace seems slower and uncomfortable. She’s still alert though, her ears still move and track every almost silent sound around her, but her stride seems unsteady. It’s only when the canine pauses to turn her head back, looking for Clementine, does her body twist around just enough for the girl to notice the pinkish smear staining her platinum cream flank.</p><p>“You’re hurt.” Without thinking, Clementine reaches her hand out, intending to comb through the bloodied fur and inspect the wound hiding beneath, only to find herself snatching the appendage back as soon as she hears the first low note of the wolf’s growl leaving her throat. To her surprise though, it’s not a menacing sound; instead, it’s soft and more of a grumble rather than a sharp warning. “Alright, I got it. No touching.”</p><p>As soon as Clementine’s fingers retreat, the wolf snuffles into her fur to lick at her injury. Her pale pink tongue curling and flicking through the paler fur, holding the human girl’s gaze the entire time.</p><p>“You shouldn’t lick it like that, it could get-” Clementine says softly, surprise softens her expression and widens her eyes when the wolf stops with the very tip of her tongue still peeking from between her lips. “Infected…” Her brows tug down over her eyes and she suddenly drops her voice lower as she addresses the animal directly for the first time. “You <em> do </em> understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”</p><p>If by chance, Clementine had held any doubts of the humanity that she swore simmered in the depths this wolf’s eyes; if she had, in actuality, been able to explain away everything right up until this moment as a trick of the light or her own excitement at finally<em> seeing </em> one of the wolves in the forest, then there was no explaining away what she was seeing now. For perhaps a split second the careful guarding in the animal’s eyes shatters like glass, the animalistic neutrality no longer protecting the complex human emotions like surprise and shock that dwell beneath the surface and Clementine gasps quietly under her breath. “You do. You’re not just a wolf, are you?”</p><p>Clementine finds herself mesmerized by the intelligence that stares back at her, lost in their swirls and galaxies of colour as her brain shuffles through her thoughts and drags that little flutter of recognition back into the front of her thoughts and excitement seizes her chest. “And I <em> do </em> know you, don’t I?”</p><p>To her surprise, the wolf’s lips lift up and away from her teeth and her head lowers to draw tight between her shoulders. Her hackles rise and her tail fluffs out, making her look larger and more like the wolves that Clementine remembers prancing through the pages of the fairytale books that she would read with her mother when she had been small. But then, as the shock pushes itself onto Clementine’s face and before she could think to hide it, the wolf’s eyes are gone and her caramel tail tip swishing as she wheels around and runs, leaving Clementine staring after her in bewilderment.</p><p>For a long moment, the human girl simply watches the wolf leave her and she notices how her pace slows almost immediately, notices how her gait is laboured by the limp and how it forces her into a more lupine lope. </p><p>Clementine’s next breath seems to stutter in her chest for a moment before she lets the tension drain from her body on a noisy exhale. Her breathing gradually returns to the gentle rise and fall of her chest and the sedative qualities of each breath winds through her entire body like a lullaby as she allows herself a moment to sweep her surroundings, taking in the gnarls and cracks in the wide trunks.</p><p>She recognizes the parting between the trees and how the ground evens out into the smoother trail that would eventually lead her back to the main path and the school, and she can hear the sound of running water swishing in the stream not far from where she is now. She knows where she is, the wolf had led her back home and, with a look of irrefutable confidence in her eyes, Clementine breaks into an easy jog.</p><p>Her boots drum the earth and rap over the wooden bridge as she slows to a halt beside the familiar skeletal truck. Her bow and bundle of half a dozen arrows are still where she left them, partly tucked beneath the reclaimed vehicle. And, as she bends to collect her weapon, something catches in the corner of her eye. There are new tracks in the soft earth, tracks that lead toward the old fishing shack and she knows, without any trace of doubt, that they belong to her missing wolf.</p><p>With her eyes firmly fixed on the shabby structure, Clementine threads her head and shoulder through her bow and slides her feet slowly, cautiously, toward the building. As she moves, she is careful to take notice of any movements that could indicate a possible ambush and her ears strain for any sound that might shatter the peace of the giggling water and the cheerful bird song. </p><p>So far, nothing. Just her almost soundless steps and cantering heart.</p><p>Stealthily she begins her approach of the door and the closer she moves, the more she hears. There’s the rolling clink of disturbed glass and the clattering of wood announcing an upturned chair that sees her dropping into a squat by the dilapidated steps that lead up to the sagging porch. And she listens in near silence to the low whining sound that winds through the cracks between the door and its frame and drifts through the splintered walls.</p><p>The wolf is inside.</p><p>To avoid alerting the animal to her presence with any accidental noises, Clementine shucks off her bow and leaves it, as well as the arrows, tucked behind the rain barrels before she feels confident enough to test the first step with her foot. And she mutters a sharp swear low under her breath when it squeals louder than a rabbit caught in a snare and her eyes snap nervously over toward the shack as the movements from behind the flimsy door suddenly quieten and still.</p><p>She holds her breath and her eyes dart nervously, searching for an escape route until she hears the scrabbling of thick claws scraping over the naked wooden boards and the heavy panting of a distressed canine fade in and out of earshot. Waiting a few moments longer until and she feels confident that the wolf has moved far enough away from her wall for her to confidently slide her foot back under herself without a sound.</p><p>The next thing that Clementine hears is a louder, sharper whine than the first, but it’s the following crash of a body tumbling heavily to the ground that sends the brunette scrambling for the nearest crack in the wall large enough for her to peer through. It’s hard for her to see all that much and all that clearly through the gloom. But there is just barely enough light cutting through the darkness in blades -courtesy of the numerous cracks in the walls, for her to see the wolf. Her light coloured body tucked as deeply inside the broken old bathtub as she could be, with her eyes closed and her angular head resting on her paws.</p><p>She’s so still and, if it hadn’t been for the laborious panting and the strange contortions writhing beneath her thick fur, Clementine would have sworn that the animal was dead. Then her paws twitch and a low moan rolls from between her long teeth and the rippling contortions melt away, taking with it the fur and teeth and claws and leaving behind a thin and naked form with short tangles of soft blonde hair that sticks to damp, pale skin.</p><p>As the girl inside the shack shakily pushes herself to sit upright, Clementine’s eyes slowly unfocus and her mouth falls open, wide and slack, as confusion buzzes noisily inside her skull. Her thoughts race faster than her brain can process them and her logical mind tries to desperately convince her that she did <em> not </em> just watch a wolf morph into… into <em> her! </em>- despite what her eyes are telling her. But it’s when she hears that distinctive bluesy voice uttering a raspy “Shit” that she knows there is no other explanation for it, not one that she feels she can accept anyway. Not after what she had just seen. Her knees shake beneath her and as she sinks down she seems unable to breathe properly anymore, only capable of taking air in but not expelling it.</p><p>She just saw… she… </p><p>Violet was -<em> is </em>- the wolf?</p><p>For a moment longer, Clementine can’t move, can’t breathe and when she tries to stand she can’t. Her limbs feel like they are made of wet sand, crumbling away under her weight. So she stays there on her knees and, gradually, the cold sensation that had washed over her leeches out of her joints and the fist of incomprehension unfurls from around her brain. Slowly, Clementine forces herself back onto her feet and steps onto the porch. She can’t feel the warmth of the day on her back any more; nor can she feel chill from the doorknob in her palm as her fingers curl around the rusted brass, she just feels numb, like she’s awake inside of a dream.</p><p>“Okay, Clem, okay.” The brunette closes her eyes as she shakes out her limbs. “It’s all going to be okay. It’s just Violet, you know Violet… apparently not as well as you thought, but it’s still her… Right?" She takes a long, slow breath deep, deep down into her lungs and holds it, counting to five inside her head before she lets it out slowly and taps her knuckle gently on the rickety door. “Vi? You in there?”</p><p>Nothing but silence answers her and the younger teen feels the first gentle stir of irritation forming in her chest. Her knuckles tighten and she slowly twists the doorknob as she calls. “I’m coming in okay?”</p><p>“Clem?” There’s a hint of panic in Violet’s voice and the sound of bare feet thumping against the equally bare floorboards. “Uhhh, just… just give me a sec, okay? I’m not dressed.”</p><p>Something else crashes to the floor from behind the door. Something very solid and denser than the chair from earlier and, if the string of colourful curses was anything to go by, that ‘something’ was Violet herself. The corners of Clementine’s mouth twitch fractionally upwards; just at the very edges, although she’s not entirely sure why, and she eeks the door open just wide enough for her to slip herself through without having to open it entirely. Once inside it takes a moment or two for Clementine’s eyes to adjust to the gloom and a moment longer to find the still naked blonde sprawled across the floor, her ankles tangled up in the ropes used to secure the fish traps and her fingers frantically tugging at the thick cords in an effort to escape.</p><p>“God-fucking-damnit!” Violet hisses. Her eyes narrow as she still struggles to dig her nails into the rope fibres. “Stupid fucking-”</p><p>“What are you doing?”</p><p>“I, uh…” The way that Violet looks at her then; the way that her careful guard cracks and splinters and the way that her shock edges through the jagged shields and her anxieties flood into her irises, sends Clementine’s heart leaping into her throat and her mind reeling back to that moment in the forest.</p><p>It’s <em> exactly </em> like looking into the eyes of the wolf.</p><p>“I, um… I went for a swim,” Violet mutters quietly, but her tone is so flat that it’s almost like she doesn’t even buy into her own feeble story. “In the little pond upriver, the one I showed you last fall.”</p><p>“Oh.” The brunette kneels, turning her attention away from the blonde’s face to focus on the tangle around her ankles instead, only glancing up again once the last loop slides free and Violet pulls her legs toward herself. “Alone?”</p><p>“I like the quiet."</p><p>Swallowing hard and blinking harder, Clementine just nods and settles back on her knees. “Where are your clothes?”</p><p>“I… I don’t…” Violet groans and presses her eyes against the backs of her knees. She squeezes her thighs together a little more firmly and she tightens the fingers of her left hand around her right wrist. “In here… somewhere.”</p><p>“Why leave them here, Vi?” Clementine doesn’t want to push. She really doesn’t. But she also doesn’t want Violet to keep lying to her, not when they’d grown so close to each other over the year. “Why didn’t you take them with you?”</p><p>Violet keeps her face hidden behind her knees and shrugs. The more Clementine picks holes into her excuses, the more her arms tense around her shins and the more they pull her legs even tighter into her ball of unease; until her heels are pressed flush against her ass and she can’t curl any smaller. And the more she hides, the more Clementine pushes her.</p><p>“So, you’re telling me that you came out here to swim. And, rather than undressing at the pond, you thought it was a better idea to strip here and walk -<em> naked </em> - through the forest instead?” Clementine tries to catch and hold the flicker of green that just barely peers over the pale knees and through the scattering of limp blonde strands. “That doesn’t sound like something that the Violet <em> I </em> know would do.”</p><p>The air around them softly hums with what Clementine can only deduce to be a low growling sound. A low growling sound that seems to be emanating from somewhere deep in Violet’s throat. “Well, maybe there are some things about me that you<em> don’t </em>know. Did you ever consider that?”</p><p>There’s something that simmers in Violet’s eyes that has Clementine’s jaw tightening and her throat constricting around her tongue. Something wild and untamed and Clementine finds that she is the first to drop her gaze, her heart galloping in her chest as she pushes herself to her feet. She has been in so many life-threatening scenarios with walkers in the near-decade of the apocalypse but she has never felt more like a rabbit staring down the gaping maw of a predator as she does at this moment. It wasn’t as though she actually thought Violet would hurt her -why would she?- it was just something primal, instinctual, one predator suddenly discovering that there was, in fact, another rung in the food chain set above them and that they were in the presence of the creature that claimed it.</p><p>Violet doesn’t watch as Clementine pads away from her. She just closes her eyes and waits to hear the door of the shack rattle open and slam shut. She doesn’t expect to hear Clementine’s heavy boots move further away from the door and then back to her, nor does she expect the thick blanket that drapes around her shoulders and traps her radiating body heat between bare skin and fabric. And she certainly doesn’t expect to hear the words that come next as Clementine, once again, drops to her knees in front of her.</p><p>“I know what you are, Vi.” She says quietly, almost guiltily. Her fingers shake a little as she takes the edge of the blanket and uses it to wipe off a tiny brownish smear still clinging to the blonde’s cheek.</p><p>“No, Clem. You don’t.” Violet’s own fingers entwine with the fabric, eyes on her own slim digits as they rub the textured threads between the pads of her thumb and index finger, pulling the wide covering closer around her shoulders as she adds in a whisper. “You can’t.”</p><p>“I saw you out there, today.” Clementine drops the edge of the blanket from her fingers and gently cups the blonde’s sharp jaw instead, applying the smallest amount of pressure, she coaxes Violet to turn her face toward her. “And you know I did. You let me follow you.”</p><p>Again, as she holds the blondes chin in her palm and watches the girls eyes, Clementine feels that same sensation that she is eye to eye with something primaeval. And that feeling only intensifies as the pale green hardens. “You saw a <em> wolf </em>, Clem. Just a wolf.”</p><p>As soon as Violet says the word, Clementine feels a surge of acknowledgement and this time, when she holds the blonde’s gaze, she’s determined not to look away first. Her lips contort into a strange mix of a smile and frown, like her mouth can move but her cheeks remain stiff, refusing to compromise. “I didn’t say anything about a wolf, Vi. But now that<em> you’ve </em>mentioned it, you’re right, I did see a wolf out there. And I followed her, out into a part of the forest I’d never seen before. Then she led me back here, to this shack. <em> Inside </em> this shack, where I found you.”</p><p>With each word that escapes Clementine’s lips, Violet’s body freezes up a little tighter and her rational mind shuts down, reverting itself to the baser of her instincts. Fight or flight. Her pupils dilate and dart, frenzied and trapped and scanning for a way out, a direction to run.</p><p>“I saw you, Violet. I watched you change. You didn’t go swimming. You were out there, in the forest, as a wolf.” She hates how panicked the blonde is. Hates how her breathing has shifted from a deep, steady rhythm into rapid swallows of air. “You’re a werew-”</p><p>“Don’t!” In the half-second that it takes for her to spit the word, the blonde is up on her feet. The movement was so quick and fluid that Clementine’s mind is still processing it even as she watches the blonde pace a few awkward steps across the room, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders and swirling around her feet.</p><p>“You don’t…” The blonde pauses and sighs heavily through her nose. “You can’t know, Clem.”</p><p>“That you’re a werewo-”</p><p>“Loup-garou.” Violet hisses, again cutting off the brunette. “And, no. <em> No one </em> is supposed to know about us.”</p><p>“Us?” Although Clementine’s brow drops down low over her eyes in a puzzled frown, her voice skips higher at the end of the word and hitches as her excitement refuses to be concealed. “There are more loop-grus?”</p><p>“<em>Loup-garou. </em>” The blonde repeats, carefully enunciating the word.</p><p>“Werewolf is easier to say.”</p><p>Violet shrugs. “Maybe, but werewolf makes you think of some half human-half mutated wolf mess. Loup-garou is more accurate.”</p><p>Her curiosity peaked, Clementine arches an eyebrow at the bundled blonde and finally rises up on her own feet. “Really? So, what does it mean?”</p><p>It’s easy to tell, just by the way that Violet’s shoulders are hunched that she’s insecure; but there, on her lips, is the tiniest of curves, the tightest of smiles as she murmurs. “Werewolf.” Then the smile breaks and fades and her voice is softer now, but at least she’s not hiding anymore. “It’s uh, French, I think. Louis’s idea. Said it makes us sound less terrifying and more ‘mysterious’ or some stupid shit like that.”</p><p>“Louis?” Clementine breathes. She rises up onto her flexing toes and bounces lightly. It was like every fibre of her being was vibrating with anticipation. Her adrenaline courses through her veins in warming waves and her hands tremble as she touches her fingers to her quirking lips and her smokey topaz eyes widen. “Louis is one too?”</p><p>“I fucking hope so,” Violet grumbles quietly and pads over to the mattress shoved into the corner of the shacks open living space. She shifts her gaze over to the brunette still standing near the door and drops down heavily onto the old, worn-out bedding. “Seeing as he’s the big ass timber-fuck who bit me.”</p><p>“Louis bit you?”</p><p>Violet nods, her eyes downcast as she picks at the frayed edges of the blanket with her nails. It’s only when she manages to push and twist her index finger through the hole she’s made does she look up at the girl slowly moving toward her. “In here, actually. D’you see the torn sheets on the wall and the claw marks in the floor?” She waits for Clementine to finish her visual exploration and nod. “That was me. Well, my wolf. It was my first shift and I couldn’t make her listen and she didn’t want to.” She resumes her picking at the fabric and adds softly. “The idiot saved my life.”</p><p>For a long moment, Clementine doesn’t speak. She just quietly lowers herself to the mattress, sitting as close to the blonde as she dared yet far enough away for her to not feel threatened by her presence. “How?”</p><p>“He stayed with me.” Violet lifts her eyes, but not her chin, as her grey-green irises flash toward the younger teen from beneath pale lashes. “After he bit me and I was half-crazy fighting with her. He could have left me here and let the wolf tear me apart, but he stayed.”</p><p>She stops clutching the blanket around her shoulders and lets her arms shift down to wrap loosely around her middle as her teeth begin to worry at her lip. Her eyes have a glassy, far-away quality to them like she’s somewhere just out of reach to everything else around her. Then Violet hums a sigh and Clementine is suddenly aware that that wasn’t quite all that the blonde had to say on the matter of Louis’s heroics.</p><p>“But that wasn’t how he saved me, Clem.” This time when Violet looks up, she does lift her chin. This time, when Violet looks to Clementine, she holds her amber-gold gaze with her own unwavering stare. “Biting me into the pack, <em> that </em>was how he saved me.”</p><p>“I… I don’t…” Clementine pauses. Confusion and trepidation sliding through her insides, it’s touch slithering down and winding its chilling fingers around each and every organ until it coils low in her belly. She swallows, touches her lips with her tongue and then tries again. “How does his biting you save your life?”</p><p>“It’s… It’s complicated.” Violet just barely rolls her shoulder in a gentle shrug, sending the loosening blanket slipping a little lower down her skin. “There are rules, Clementine. And some are really, really fucking shitty.”</p><p>Shifting around on her hip and ignoring the gentle squeak of the worn-out springs, the brunette slowly reaches her hand across the span of personal space between them and clutches at Violet’s tense fingers. Letting the warmth and softness of her own offer the blonde her comfort as she smiles her encouragement. “Then talk to me and help me understand your world.”</p><p>The silence that fills the tiny cabin is as absolute as it is deafening. The bright and merry bubbling of the river is, ironically, drowned out by the void; the sweet lilting songbirds quietly absent. The presence of the blonde and her company, in which Clementine usually finds so comforting and so often finds herself going out of her way to seek, feels almost wrong; like she’s sitting with a stranger instead of family. And so, as the quietness continues to grow ever deeper, all that she can hear is her own steady rhythm from within her breast.</p><p>Violet's tense again. Clementine can see it in the way that her lips are taut and in how there's a slight tremor in her cheek, pulling at her eye. She could encourage her, tell her that it will all be alright in the end, but she doesn’t know that. Violet does, however, and her avoidance throughout this entire interaction doesn’t exactly fill the brunette with that much confidence but it does continue to stimulate her curiosity. Thankfully though, Clementine doesn’t have to try and force the blonde because she takes the long, cleansing breath, slow and softly deflating, of someone with a story to tell. </p><p>“I was thirteen when I found out.” The blanket edge is back between Violet’s fingers and, for the third time, she’s picking at the tattered tears and widening the holes. “Found out a lot of things when I was thirteen. I figured out that puberty and hormones suck. That the crush I had on Minnie was more than just those weird-ass teenage hormones going insane.”</p><p>She pauses, snorts a single dry chuckle and selects a new area of the fabric to destroy. “I was a kid, a really fucking stupid one and all I knew was that I really, really liked her. So, I carved that dumb little heart into the wall over there and brought her down here to show her. She really seemed to like it, but she was fourteen and she had someone pining for her so, of course, she liked it. She kissed me and said she wanted to show me something too. Told me to close my eyes and to keep them shut and she’d let me know when I could look. So, like an idiot, I did as she said. The next thing I know, there was something tugging on my pant leg. I panicked. Thought a fucking walker had dragged itself inside and was about to take a bite out of me, so I kicked it. It yelped and, when I opened my eyes again, there was this red wolf standing there staring at me.”</p><p>Clementine gasps quietly; her eyes wide and dancing with an enthralled light as she breathes in a gentle voice.  “Minnie’s one too?”</p><p>“She’s the reason I’m one.” The way that Violet is looking at her sends Clementine’s heart tumbling through the floor. There’s a strange emotion lurking just beneath the watercolour irises like someone lit a match behind them; the grey flecks artfully swirling through the greens burn like liquid silver, wild and supernatural, before the flame dampens and they shift down and she looks away again. It’s something that makes the tiny, sensitive hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end and shiver. “Knowing about us, it’s a death sentence, Clem. Trial by Teeth. Some medieval bullshit punishment. The wolf who breaks the rules and causes the threat to our secrecy is the one who has to carry out the act.” </p><p>Clementine can feel her brain floundering; trying to dissect the words that Violet had just dumped in her lap into something more digestible... but she can’t. It’s like her mind has just stalled out entirely. She opens her mouth and tries to say something, anything… but she <em> can’t</em>. There are a million questions floating around inside her head; she can see them all so clearly just drifting there, and all she has to do is focus and say something. But. She. Can’t… she just<em> can’t</em>. </p><p>Then Clementine’s eyes widen and she swallows, hard. “Minnie… She...” She feels like she already knows the answer to the question that’s she’s about to voice… and that answer frightens her. “She’s why Louis bit you, isn’t she? That’s what you mean when you say that he saved your life.”</p><p>“Because Minnie wouldn’t.” Though her voice is steady and Violet’s lips twist up as she gently snorts, it’s far from anything born in good nature; the blonde’s posture and her body language clearly radiate her feelings of bitterness. “Louis was so mad at her. Minnie knew what breaking the rules would mean for me -she <em> knew!- </em> and she broke them anyway. And then, she made it so much worse when she made me swear to keep it secret. She said that <em> she </em> would get in trouble if anyone found out that I knew. And I liked her, I liked her so fucking much that I kept it, for two years.”</p><p>A heavy silence settles over the two teens, thickening than the uneasy tension in the atmosphere between them. Their unsettled eyes and awkward glances dart unceremoniously around, trying to avoid catching the others attention as they pass by. Violet’s focus falls to the floor, scrutinizing the deeply scored marks that her claws had torn into the boards years earlier while Clementine’s tawny gaze follows the spread of mildew on the lichen pocked walls. The jittering anxieties that had been steadily encroaching into the brunette’s thoughts as she had listened to Violet’s words, now twisting into fear.</p><p>“It’s so easy to think that this world is a little less dangerous when you’re one of the dangerous things in it,” Violet says quietly. Her words are cryptic as they hang in the air and she slants her gaze over to the brunette. Her mouth tries to smile, but the curve to her lips dies before it can even fully form and she drops her eyes back down to her bare feet, watching her toes press and curl into the furrows. “When the truth is, it isn’t. It just becomes harder and a hell of a lot more dangerous because the stakes are so much higher.”</p><p>Over the years that she’s spent living within in a world hellbent on killing her, Clementine has grown accustomed to feeling scared. Grown to crave that little touch of adrenaline that surges through her body every time that she leaves the school’s grounds or grappled with a walker; it keeps her senses keen and her wits sharp which, in turn, keeps her alive. </p><p>What she is feeling now is different, crippling, and her instincts are confused. Her eyes show her Violet, the girl she’d found friendship and companionship with and her thoughts show her memories of their tangled fingers, stolen moments and smiling lips kissed in stardust. But then she breathes and the fear is there still; sitting on her chest, heavy like a snake formed of iron, with its coils wrapping around her ribs and just barely squeezing. Her breaths feel hindered but not prevented; enough air still gets by and allows her body to keep functioning, even though she can feel her insides slowly dying. Can feel how it slithers into her mind with its confusing whispers. Its hisses of doubt coax her legs to feel weak and encourages her stomach to lurch and squirm, and it convinces her heart to ache.</p><p>And then Violet’s posture droops and her shoulders sag forwards as she pushes her face into her hands, further muffling her shaking voice as she whispers. “I didn’t know you were out there. When you saw me, I panicked and ran. I didn’t…” </p><p>She’s working herself up into hysterics, her fingers threading through her hair and twisting the sweaty strands into knots, but what catches Clementine’s eye is the way her skin is pulled tight over the shifting shadows of involuntary movement writhing beneath it; something is pushing to escape. “Vi? Are you… Are you oka-?</p><p>“Why were you out here? You weren’t supposed to be out here… it wasn’t your turn to hunt.”</p><p>Violet can feel her body instinctively reacting to her distress. Beginning in her chest with her heartbeat suddenly skyrocketing before her abdomen clenches down hard around her insides. Her breathing comes more rapid, more shallow as her limbs seize in a wave of tension so sharp that it forces her breath from her lungs in a soft cry. And the gentle hum of the blood in her veins swells to an angry buzz, a swarm of flashing wings and writhing legs squirming beneath her skin and along her nerve endings trying to force its way out.</p><p>
  <em> Shit! Not now! Please, not now! </em>
</p><p>The room spins and Violet’s eyes roll up just as she crashes down onto her side and sends the other girl jumping to her feet. The faster her thoughts accelerate inside her head and the more she fights for control, the quicker she loses it. Clementine’s fear scent floods her nose and it further excites the wolf inside. Predatory flashes of long teeth bared and hot blood flinging; and Clementine’s dulled, unfocused eyes staring up at nothing all swirl around inside her skull. And she wants it to stop. <em> Needs </em>it to stop.</p><p>… but it doesn’t.</p><p>Finally, when she can breathe again, the wolf lays there, her jaws parted and her breath panting. She’s exhausted, both mentally and physically, her body crying for her to rest but her mind demands that she move. Her short, rounded ears flicker, tracking the rabbit quick breathing of something else close by and, as her nostrils flare, they catch the familiar aroma of human though her scent is just barely sweetened by a touch of fear.</p><p>Clementine watches as the wolf rises slowly from where the older teen had lain. She is all strength and long limbs, shaking out her fur so that it lies over her form more neatly; short over her body and longer at her neck. Now that Clementine is so close and actually has the time to take notice, she can see that the white of her fur is less pure and more layered hues of creams and palest golds; marrying to the soft butter-caramel colour that drizzles the line of her spine from her darkened ears and the tip of her tail effortlessly.</p><p>“Vi… Violet?” Clementine swallows hard, unable to tear her eyes from the strong animal, her heartbeat fluttering in her chest just a little too fast for her to attempt to fool even herself into believing that she was calm. “Can you look at me?”</p><p>And when the wolf -<em> Violet </em>- raises her broad head, her distinctive grey-green eyes, wild and untamed, fixate on Clementine’s, all of the reasons not to do this as well as the bloom of soft panic rise to flood her system. But when she hears the gentle whine in Violet’s throat and watches how her ears pull flat in submission rather than aggression, her gently flicking tail tip tucked slightly between her legs; Clementine breathes carefully and allows her heels to slide out from beneath her as she sinks down to thump heavily on her rear. The storage shelves behind her still press into her spine, reminding her that she is trapped between them and a ninety-pound wolf and has no escape if the animal chooses to attack; she has her knife but it brings little comfort, she knows that she’d never use it on Violet, no matter the circumstance.</p><p>Her eyes still fixed on the animal, Clementine draws her armed leg closer and freezes when she hears the soft growl rumbling low in Violet’s throat; surprised to find more wolf than Violet in her eyes as her lips pull back far enough to expose her long teeth in warning.</p><p>“It’s okay, Vi. I’m getting rid of it.” With her fingers just barely shaking and with surprisingly little fumbling, Clementine unbuckles the leather sheath from her thigh and tugs it free. “See?” She shows the weapon in her open palm for a moment before pitching the knife -sheath and all- onto the mattress, chuckling tightly when Violet tilts her head in fascination as it bounces once and then lies still on the old padding. “I’m not going to hurt you.”</p><p>Violet’s ears swivel forward; alert and curious and her eyes soften as the animalistic gleam in them fade back into the edges. She moves slowly, fluidly, like the waters of a still lake; you can’t see the swirling and ripples beneath the glossy surface but you know that the current is there. Within moments she’s standing over Clementine, her nostrils flaring as she lowers her muzzle and snuffles around the brunette’s fingers. Then Clementine squeaks as the snuffling nose pushes into the sensitive skin behind her ear and blows out warm little breaths in quick snorts. Aside from her size and distinguishingly wolf features; not excluding that she had seen the transformation from wolf to a teenage girl then back to wolf again with her own eyes, it’s easy for Clementine to imagine that she is staring at nothing more than a friendly -if a little shy- stray dog.</p><p>Then Violet pushes her head heavily into Clementine’s shoulder, groaning softly from her chest and her tail gently swaying. Clementine’s mouth is suddenly dry and she is hesitant but after taking a quick moment to consider where her actions might lead her, she pushes her fingers into the thick ruff of fur around Violet’s neck.</p><p>The longer tips of the topcoat’s guard hairs feel stiff and coarse between her fingers, but then they sink down through to the undercoat which is so unbelievably soft that Clementine can’t stop the breathy little “oh” from slipping from her lips. She curls her fingers through it, uses her nails the scrape gently at the well-defended skin and chuckles quietly when Violet leans her weight a little deeper into her touch. “You’re still just a giant softy, aren’t you. All huff and puff but no actual bluster.”</p><p>From the crook of her armpit, where Violet’s head had now sunk to, Clementine can hear indignant grumbles drift free and those painfully familiar sounds draw a louder laugh from the brunette as she pulls back fully cupping the canine head between her hands and smiling softly. “Thank you, for letting me pet you.” </p><p>Then her smile fades and she knows what’s to come next. Her anxieties and fear resurface in a storm of fluttering butterfly wings in her belly and it must taint her scent a little because Violet’s ears lower and her softly wagging tail suddenly stills as she whines. Instinctively, Clementine reaches a hand out to rub the caramel ear, she tries to force the smile back onto her face but can’t, her cheeks remain stiff and unresponsive.</p><p>“It’s okay, Vi.” She croons softly, her thumbs still stroking the animal’s fluffy cheeks. “It’s not like I’ve never been bitten by a dog before and, besides, I’ve never really been that afraid of the big bad wolf anyway.”</p><p>As Violet utters a single soft bark and eases her head from Clementine’s hands, the brunette closes her eyes and draws in a long, deep breath; taking it down into her lungs to hold as she waits. It’s stupid; because she knows that Violet will smell it on her, but she doesn’t want her to see just how frightened Clementine is of her right now. She’s scared of what’s about to happen, terrified of what will happen to AJ now, and she<em> hates </em>that was her own god damned stupid curiosity getting the better of her that has now put Violet into a situation where she has to suffer for Clementine’s recklessness…</p><p>And she’s furious at herself that she’s never told the blonde how much she likes her.</p><p>She can hear Violet’s thick claws scraping over the barren floorboards as she paces backwards a couple of steps and she can hear how the soft whimpering and strained growls tangle and tumble together, as though she’s muttering to herself under her breath. The next thing that Clementine is aware of is the gentle huff of Violet’s breath swathing her face and the slightly cold touch of her nose pressing to her cheek and the tiniest flicker of a tongue as she pulls away with a sorrowful whine.</p><p>And then there is pain, the sharp tearing sensation of teeth piercing through flesh. And the bubbling sound of blood frothing as it pushes through mocha brown flesh to dribble and flow; staining the cream coloured muzzle clamping hard and dripping down to seep into the furrows sliced into the floorboards four years ago.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Our World, Metamorphic.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A howl that is followed by a beat of silence and then by one of the loudest and most piercing screams that he has ever heard. A scream of wild panic, of hysteria so sharp that it borders on terror.</p><p>It’s a scream that has AJ lunging to his feet as he recognizes the voice faster than Louis had the howl.</p><p>“Louis,” The boy whimpers, his eyes wide and pleading. “That was Clem.”</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So camp Nano is a bust, I am still trying to update the other fics asap. I hope you enjoy this instalment, kudos and comment are greatly appreciated.</p><p>Also, happy 8 years of Clementine- 4/24/2020</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u"> Chapter. 2: Our World, Metamorphic. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>The birds fly through the pinkish glow of last of the dawn tinted clouds; their bodies silhouettes and their wings fine brushes, feathers tipped in brilliant golds and blazing blues, buoyant hues painted through the wind dappled wisps. Their arcing wings spread the sunrise across the sky, each fragile bird a tiny feathered artist amid a natural canvas.</p><p>AJ sits on his knees, watching through unfocused eyes as the small flock of birds crosses the sky. He watches them, just barely, until they are mere ghosts upon the horizon, until that moment just before they mist away to blend into the shadows of the faraway forest canopy. Then his gaze shifts down to idly observe the trees through his distorted and distracted vision; seeing but not really noticing how the leaves flicker and sway in a warming breeze. One hand comes up to cradle his chin in its palm, the other still clutches the forgotten red pencil; the point just barely resting upon the forgotten sheets as he listens to the bird’s trilling in fading voices that are sweetly high, their chorus playful, as he broods.</p><p>AJ is far more than simply distracted by the serenity of nature. In his mind, his thoughts are dominated with the absence of his guardian and his attention is quick to move away from his papers with every creaking groan and cracking twig that echoes from the forest beyond the gate; his frustration growing every time that he hears the shushing wind rolling up through the dry leaves like the tides breaking upon the shore. He grumbles under his breath as he scratches his nails through the stiff, frizzy curls sticking to his nape; the skin beneath feeling claustrophobic and a little bit suffocated as the mid-morning heat continues to push in on him, the annoying little prickle of drying salt settling along his hairline frustrates him further as it continues to pull his skin uncomfortably tight.</p><p>Across the picnic table -directly opposite him- and settled in his own seat a little more comfortably than AJ is in his, sits Tennessee. His eyes are aimed down as his shoulders hunch over an open sketchbook; his pencil skates nimbly across the paper with a soft <em> skrtch… skrtch… skrtch… skrtch </em> and scores his finishing lines into the sheet before he carefully sets the pencil aside. Then the older boy rolls himself upright, his eyes soft and mouth dressed in a tiny, genuine smile as he carefully tears the sheet from his pad and shyly pushes it toward the younger boy.</p><p>“Here you go, AJ.” The quietly introspective boy gently twists the sheet around to properly display the image for his friend’s scrutiny and nods in gentle encouragement for AJ to take the paper from him. “This should help.”</p><p>AJ blinks slowly as the fuzzy edges and the watery images of his immediate surroundings gradually fade back into focus and he swivels his head back around from his brooding to stare at the paper beneath his friend’s fingertips. His brow puckers and then creases into a puzzled frown as he draws the sheet closer to himself and his dark eyes flick up and away from the crisp lines etched into the paper and over to his friend’s quietly anxious face for clarification.</p><p>“You said that you didn’t know what they looked like,” Tenn informs the younger boy quietly. The edge of his small, genuine smile turning tight -embarrassed maybe- and his fingers find each other to tug and twist as his creeping nerves begin to make themselves known. “So I thought if I drew one first, then maybe you could try to copy it. If… if you wanted to.”</p><p>As comprehension slowly floods AJ’s features his lips quirk up into a wide boyish grin and his eyes dance as he nods. Carefully, he pulls the paper closer, his eyes low as he begins to mark new hesitant lines into a fresh page and his features soften with his gratitude as he murmurs a soft. “Thanks, Tenn.”</p><p>The fragile smile on Tennessee’s face returns in full force and his voice cracks sharply under the strain of his excitement; as well as the embarrassment that accompanies the onset of puberty, as he too picks up his pencil and dives back into his own drawings. “Sure thing, AJ.”</p><p>As Tennessee begins on a new drawing, happy to have helped his friend, he is blissfully unaware that AJ pauses in his own linework and, instead, carefully studies the sketch that his friend passed over to him.</p><p>He doesn’t understand why Clementine is so fascinated by them. The animal cavorting on the paper peers back at him through dark, graphite eyes; its short and rounded ears are alert and perked forwards and the short, pointed nose lowered. It looks like a dog but it’s not the same kind as Rosie; it doesn’t have her short, thick legs and barrel of a chest, or her wide head and flattened muzzle, and certainly not her friendly lolling tongue. No, this animal is all long slender limbs and sharp lines, and it stirs up something strange and confusing in AJ’s insides. It’s not quite the same as curiosity, nor is it fear, but it’s something close and in between.</p><p>It’s not something that he has learned over the years of brutal survival, rather it’s something that he has been born with. Whatever it is though, it’s instinctual- even if he doesn’t quite understand what it is or why he feels it, he accepts that it’s a part of him. But he does understand that while it feels unsettlingly similar to the way his innards would twist up the few times that he has had to help Clementine with the monsters in the past, it’s still not quite the same feeling.</p><p>And it’s something that he doesn’t quite feel comfortable enough asking the others about either, so he chooses to ignore it. He takes those uncomfortable feelings wriggling around in his belly like maggots and the strange emotions sitting in his chest that come with it and pushes them down to hide behind his stoic eyes and stiff smiles and returns to drawing.</p><p>Gradually the quiet minutes stretch from a few into many and both boys are so engrossed in their own individual etchings that they barely notice as the other survivors that call Ericson’s Boarding School home begin to appear. Materializing like ghosts from the quiet nooks and hidden corners of the grounds to pad toward the cooking pit, a few still carry the tools that they had been using in their morning chores before their rumbling stomachs lured them away, while others simply saunter along with their hands shoved into their pockets. But each of them wears the same hopeful expression as they all gather around the big old cast iron pot and peer in at the contents bubbling away over a low flame.</p><p>And each of them wears the same crestfallen grimace on their faces when they spy the meagre offering contained inside the iron hanging over the fire. Grimaces that turn to frowns and even scowls as the dishes are passed down the waiting line and each kid takes a turn to spoon a menial portion of the thin leftovers into their bowls. With the scalding stew; though, by now it’s been so watered down that it’s more of a soup than anything nearing the heartiness it had once been, in their bowls the teens of various ages trudge slowly over to the trio of picnic benches to take their seats for their meal.</p><p>“Morning boys.”</p><p>The two young artists jolt upright, startled by the unexpectedly cheerful voice ringing between them. Both sets of eyes dart away from their respective papers and lift to find themselves greeted by the welcomed sight of familiar dreadlocks framing bright features; the slightest curve to a mouth's corner and youthful confidence worn in the light rise of the boy’s eyebrow above the quizzical and joyful doe-brown eyes.</p><p>“Breakfast is served-” Assured that he has fully captivated the attention of his audience, Louis holds up two steaming bowls -one cradled in each of his hands- for them to scrutinize. “-and is very, <em> very </em> hot. So, what do you say about moving your masterpieces aside for now so I can put these bowls down before they burn through my hands?”</p><p>There was never any question that Louis; with his smiles and banter and his uncanny knack to draw smiles almost as wide as his own and soothe frazzled nerves in the darkest times, was the beating heart of their little group. Everything about him from his juvenile pranks to his constant need to engage everyone in his tasteless jokes and banter, as well as his playful card games and immature teasing, exudes more charm and self-sureness than he has right to possess in a world riddled with death and nightmares.</p><p>Grinning, AJ and Tennessee are quick to comply with the request, eager to quell the hunger that was an ever-present companion these days the boys hastily push their supplies into the centre of the picnic table and fall upon the slightly more generous -though still small- servings, devouring the food with gusto. Sighing softly to himself, Louis settles into his seat beside AJ on the bench and reaches his hand out to slide the top page of the loose papers toward himself, his gaze lifting only marginally beneath his lashes when a shimmer of movement and a flash of red just barely catches on his peripherals.</p><p>As Louis watches Tennessee’s sisters make their way over to join their brother, each with their own meal in hand, he can’t help but notice just how dissimilar the twins are to each other even though they share visual likenesses.</p><p>While Minnie is all roughness and rowdyism; grinning as she pushes her fingers through the close-cropped curls on Tennessee’s head and playfully shoving as she passes to flop down heavily on the boy’s right side, Sophie is all grace and fluidity as she takes her spot on his left. The gentle twists in her hair, the colour of burnt sunsets, catch Louis’s attention as they tumble down to barely skim her shoulders and her eyes, the colour of the warming oceans; crystal blue threaded with soft greens and specks of other wild colours flecked throughout, enticing his gaze to flicker higher even though his head remains bowed.</p><p>And as he finds himself following the light dusting of small freckles, faint against her cheeks until they just barely darken as they cross the bridge of her nose, Louis decides that admiring the older twins features is a welcome distraction to the wholly unpleasant gnaw of hunger that he has been feeling in the pit of his belly since dusk the night before.</p><p>A distraction that is very quickly broken by a curious little voice that has him glancing away from the redhead across the bench and listening to words mumbled around a mouth full of watery soup and too soft carrot.</p><p>“Um, Louis,” AJ says quietly as he slants his gaze over to the vacant spot in front of the teen and frowns. “Aren’t you hungry?”</p><p>Every now and then, Louis does wear a fake smile and dial down his exuberance when the need arises, it’s how he has been able to find and forge a connection with even the quietest of people. And over the years he has found that it’s easier for the lies to flow over smiling lips rather than frowning ones when the time calls for him to act the good-natured fool. This makes it so easy to write Louis off as genuinely fool-hearted where he was, in actuality, far less the fool than those he fooled. There is so much more to him than simply being an extrovert who flourishes in the spotlight; he has a softer side to him too, and a quiet need to protect in the only way he knows how.</p><p>Deflection.</p><p>Over the years, Louis has come to realize two things about his life; that being hungry is an ever-present companion- that was a lesson that he’d very quickly learned ever since his first change, after which, his appetite had exploded…</p><p>“I’m good, kiddo. You’re still growing so you need it more.”</p><p>...And that the lies will always slip out more easily when they just barely cover the truth.</p><p>The next moment that passes does so in comfortable quiet, with only relaxed conversations and soft chuckles and giggles flitting about Louis’s ears, the calm reaching into the next moment as well as the third that follows. Until Louis’s stomach suddenly growls; low and loud and bordering on painful as he tries to hide how he squirms in his seat and attempts to silence the rumbling by squishing down the empty, squirming sensation with his hand pressing over his belly. Attempting to focus on anything other than the steady gnawing sensation winding through his insides as he swallows down the fresh wave of nausea, Louis happens to notice the tiny hint of guilt that edges into AJ’s downturned eyes as the boy watches the last few scraps of too tough meat floating miserably in the shallow puddle of now cold broth.</p><p>“Honestly kiddo, I’m fine.” Louis once again slams that familiar and cheerful mask back into place. His lips contort into an awkward smile, the curve of his mouth is a touch too wide and toothy for it to pass as completely genuine. “Do you remember Marlon saying that he found deer tracks a few days ago?”</p><p>Slowly the boy nods, his teeth nibbling at his bottom lip and the little pester of guilt still glinting in his eyes.</p><p>“If Violet can bag us one of those, I promise that I’ll eat an entire leg at dinner, okay?”</p><p>“A whole leg?” AJ’s mouth twitches then, the shadow of guilt melting away from his fathomless eyes as he turns to grin at his friend. “You promise, right? Like for reals?”</p><p>“For real reals, kiddo,” Louis says, bobbing his head once and winking. “Just as soon as Vi drags her lazy ass out here so she and Minnie can head out and take their turn hunti-”</p><p>“Vi left already.” With her elbow braced and her chin propped, Minnie looks positively languid in her slouch. Her gaze half-lidded as she watches with disinterest the way that a flick of her fingers sends her spoon spinning around inside of her empty bowl. Even her lilting drawl, usually so musical in its fluctuations, is saturated in her idleness as she continues leisurely. “I came down to take a piss and saw her sneak out a couple of hours ago.”</p><p>Louis blinks at the tom-boyish girl as she stops the spoons slow spin with her nail only to send it whipping around the chipped crockery once more and frowns. “Why didn’t you go with her?”</p><p>The younger twin says nothing, just shrugs her shoulders and continues flicking at the spoon. The lack of concern Minnie displays for shirking her chores buzzes around Louis’s ears like a fly that he can’t seem to swat. Every dull word she utters, every apathetic movement she performs and sighing breath she amplifies seems to exist for little more purpose than to infuriate him further; until he finally surges to his feet and plucks the utensil from her fiddling fingers.</p><p>“If you saw her leave, then why didn’t you go with her?” Louis repeats slowly, carefully, mindful to keep his tone light and non-accusatory even if his jaw is set so tight that his teeth ache behind the flat curve of his lips. “You knew you were supposed to help her with the hunting duties today, so why are you still here?”</p><p>For a moment, Minnie says nothing, she simply stares at her hand loafing beside her bowl where her fingers are still curled back as though readying to again flick at the spoon that is now clenched in Louis’s palm. Then she blinks slowly and sighs noisily through her nose as her gaze shifts until she’s peering up at Louis through her long lashes. “I also know when she’s trying to avoid me, Lou. So why would I make her feel even more agitated by going after her when she clearly wants to be left alone?”</p><p>Louis’s shoulders tense in discomfort the moment Minnie’s familiar blue-green eyes find his. They’re so deceptive; at first glance, they look so warm and welcoming -like Sophie’s- but there’s a bite to them; those tropical hues may be the same but it’s the cold edge of grey, the swirling storm clouds of steel, that makes Minnie’s expressions so much harder to read.</p><p>For a few agonizingly slow moments both youths simply sit and stare at one another in silence, until Minnie snorts rudely and her eyes flick away again, this time off to the side rather than down but it’s clear that she’s avoiding Louis’s expectant gaze.</p><p>“Violet is capable of making decisions for herself. She can decide when she wants company and when she doesn’t.” Another derisive snort sounds, a snort that is quickly followed by a snarky <em> “heh” </em> as the redhead closes her eyes and offers the dreadlocked teen a sly little smirk as she adds. “She’s a big girl, Lou. All grown up, so she doesn’t need you to hold her hand anymore, and she doesn’t need my forced company.”</p><p>Minnie’s words, whether intentionally mocking or not, cut Louis to the quick. Her dismissiveness and blasé remarks, speak volumes of her interest in her own self-preservation. Quick to down-play her decisions and refute her accountability for said decisions, just as she had four years earlier when the sixteen-year-old had been cornered and confronted with the discovery of her showing Violet -her then very human girlfriend- what she truly was.</p><p>It’s the very same selfishness on her part that had led to a then fifteen-year-old Louis luring the blonde out into the forest under the guise of walker pest-control and trying to explain to her that the girl Violet thought she knew <em> everything </em> about had in fact, hidden the biggest secret from her. That what she knew about her crush-turned-girlfriend meant that she was now a danger to them.</p><p>And that the very same girl had placed a contract for her blood over Violet’s head and an obligation to carry out her death in Louis’s hands. He had known what the pack rules demanded whenever a human learns of their kind and he had known then as he padded toward her as a wolf and saw the panic flare in Violet’s eyes, that it would be another pack rule broken as he chose to sink his long, canine teeth into Violet’s hand rather than her throat.</p><p>
  <em> -He can still recall the betrayal in Violet’s eyes as she cradled her hand to her chest, the front of her shirt soaking in her own blood. How afraid of him she had been despite his lowered head and tucked tail. He can still see, with soul-destroying clarity, how she had retreated inside herself; her fingers pressing into the bruised punctures in her skin and her gaze hung vacant as though mentally she’s somewhere far, far away and is somehow disconnected from everything happening around her.- </em>
</p><p>Snapping himself out of his cruel memories, Louis’s cheeks visibly stiffen as the false smile that he slips so easily over his lips in a feeble attempt to convince himself, as much as he does everybody else, that he is perfectly fine suddenly feels wrong and ill-fitting.</p><p>“I never thought I’d see the day,” The hollow drawl is low and his tone is jaded as he toes the line of dry humour and bitter sneers dangerously. “Minerva developing a sudden consideration for other people’s personal boundaries and a respect for actions that don’t immediately benefit <em> her. </em> That right there, is what we call ‘personal growth’. It’s only taken you six years to figure it out, but I’m sure Violet will agree, better late than never.”</p><p>The way that Minnie’s eyes darken as Louis’s barbed words find the nerve and burrow deep is like watching storm clouds just before lightning strikes. The air between them is thick and heady as it oozes and smothers and chokes out the former feeling of camaraderie and, this time, the low rumbling that can just barely be heard doesn’t originate from Louis’s belly- but rather it vibrates from Minnie’s throat instead.</p><p>“That’s really fucking unfair and you know it, Lou.” The steel grey undertones of her eyes flare a hot and brassy silver as the livid redhead hisses. “I was a <em> kid!</em>”</p><p>The quick snap of anger that lashes through Louis’s chest in response to Minnie’s outrage arrives so sharply and so suddenly that it stuns him into silence. Unfair?! She has no <em> fucking </em> clue about what unfairness truly is!</p><p>
  <em> -Unfair was living the endless nightmare of knowing how Violet suffered through her first change. Seeing how naked and clammy skin writhed and undulated unnaturally before her flesh tore and split and knit itself back together beneath the thick pelt of fur. Unfair was having to listen to her agonized squeals and shrieks punching through his thoughts as well as the sickening crunches that bounced through the air as her bones snapped and twisted and realigned themselves into her new form. Unfair was staring into her green, panic-stricken eyes and seeing how her tears cut down through the sweat and grime caked to her cheeks and doing nothing while she whimpered and wailed and pleaded for him to spare her the agony and just kill her.- </em>
</p><p>“Yeah, it is.”</p><p>
  <em> -And unfair is knowing that none of it should have ever happened; if only Minnie had not been so selfish and stupid.- </em>
</p><p>“And yes, you were,” Louis’s stare isn't intentional as he watches Minnie’s face soften from anger to hurt, but it’s there. His irises are too stationary to be anything but as they fall to observe her mouth sitting small and rigid, analyzing how her facial muscles loosen; the wrinkle between her furrowed brow smoothing out and his eyelids flutter just a fraction too slow when they blink. “But, we were younger.”</p><p>The air that had been so full of the sweet trills and choirs of birdsong now lay on his skin like poison and the companionable banter between Sophie and the two youngest that had buzzed about his ears gradually fades into an uncomfortable silence of wary postures and darting eyes. The unspoken tension between Louis and Minnie so brittle that no-one dares speaks; what more is there to say?</p><p>There’s nothing Sophie could offer to soothe the hurt accrued from the years prior, nothing that either Tenn or AJ can add to draw amused smiles to frowning lips, and there is <em> nothing </em>that Minnie can say that might undo what had been done. So, instead, they just sit there in knee-deep in silence, awkward eyes hesitant as they glance around and try to avoid catching each other glances as they pass by. AJ shifts uncomfortably in his seat, eyes down and shoulders pulled up beneath his ears, Tennessee twists his nervous hands into the hem of his tattered shirt under the table; even Sophie fidgets in her seat, shuffling her foot against the ground and awkwardly traces the jagged outlines of each cracked brick with the toe of her boot.</p><p>Louis only becomes aware of and attempts to quickly blink away the irritating dry burn that gathers in the corners of his eyes when he realizes that watching Minnie is like watching a store mannequin. There is no anger burning behind her eyes anymore, but nor is there sadness, joy or resentment- she doesn’t even appear bored as she simply gazes at her finger as it traces the ageing furrows scored deep into the tabletop. She simply gazes at the immature insults and explicit doodles with unfocused eyes and touches the initials left behind by lost friends as though the jagged cuts somehow still connects them. But it’s only when the whorls of her fingertips catch on a familiar crude word that her breathing pattern suddenly changes and she allows a slow, controlled breath to roll through her in an attempt to loosen her tensed body.</p><p>And then, just as her eyes slide up to latch onto Louis’s and her lips twitch in preparation to part, there is a long, low cry that pushes through the softly rustling leaf and frond and peals out from deep within the heart of the forest. A howl that makes the hair stand straight up on the back of Louis’s neck as he instinctively recognizes the mournful sound-</p><p>A howl that is followed by a beat of silence and then by one of the loudest and most piercing screams that he has ever heard. A scream of wild panic, of hysteria so sharp that it borders on terror.</p><p>It’s a scream that has AJ lunging to his feet as he recognizes the voice faster than Louis had the howl.</p><p>“Louis,” The boy whimpers, his eyes wide and pleading. “That was Clem.”</p><p> </p><p>------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Shit. Shit. Shit! </em>
</p><p>The soft warmth and gentle colours from the early morning’s light have swiftly crawled into the bolder tones and richer heat that mark the summers mid-morning’s rising temperature. Scorching fingers of golden flame trace the edges of fern and frond, reaching its heat through the forests thick, sheltering canopy to shoo the cooling shadows from its reach. But still, a curl of breeze flutters through the leaves and shivers over already heated skin, combing through his thick pelt of midnight fur as Louis races through the realm of knotted roots and twisting raspberry vines with AJ’s words ringing in his ears.</p><p>Clementine had slipped out alone hours ago while Violet would have been in the middle of her hunt, almost certainly in her more predatory guise, and entirely unaware of the brunette’s intrusion.</p><p>
  <em> Shit! Shit! Shit! SHIT! </em>
</p><p>The forest is stilled in an ominous and brittle silence, with only the metronomic sound of his paws striking into the earth in a rapid staccato filling the air and a tempo in which the cursing inside his skull matches. Ducking and weaving through the wild tangles, and slipping past a single walker so riddled with decay and rot that all it can do is gurgle and hiss its outrage through its limp jaws as the wolf races on.</p><p>Louis has never run so fast in his entire life, not as a wolf and certainly never as a bipedal animal. His heavy gallop tramples over the weeds that encroach and cluster along the twisting paths and the thick guarding hairs around his face quiver and rise, protecting his delicate eyes and sensitive inner ears from the scratching claws of thorn and twig. His tongue lolls over his teeth as his lungs pull in quick breaths and, inside his chest his heart ricochets off of his rib cage, each skipping beat accounting for every two rapid thumps of his paws.</p><p>The scent of fear is strong in the air. Thick and heady and nearly tangible as it rolls up over his tongue to flood his senses. The cloying flavour of human panic helps him navigate the blurring environment that whips by, and the familiar scent of Violet’s wolf that permeates everywhere is almost indiscernibly mingled with the copper sweet taste of fresh blood- a taste that instinctively drives on his own wolf, even as his human thoughts crowd and clamour to be heard over the excited braying.</p><p>
  <em> No, no, no. NO! </em>
</p><p>He’s closer now. He can hear the swirling flow of water from the stream and can hear the giggling whispers of fish slicing and arcing through the cool currents that eddy around rocks and churns up the fertile silt. Ahead he can see the rusted out truck, it’s skeletal remains standing sentry outside of the fishing shack, his nose detecting the metallic tang of oxidized metal beneath the mingling of the stronger scents and, as his ears flick forward, he can barely make out the muffled voices and the sharp gasping whimpers drifting out through the cracks of the run-down old building as he slips silently behind it.</p><p>Louis’s transition back to human is fast and smooth. After all of the years and his numerous shifts his body barely even acknowledges the pain that accompanies the warping of bone and receding fur anymore- although, he does still wince as his jaw cracks back into place and his teeth realign inside his mouth.</p><p>Padding from his hiding place Louis shivers, the whisper of the breeze rolling across the stream feels cold to his heated skin. His teeth bite into his lower lip softly as he moves to the broken window of the deteriorating driver’s side door and carefully slides his arm through, avoiding the shards of still stuck glass. He rummages blindly beneath the old sun-bleached bench seat, his nose wrinkling at the musty smell and, after a few moments he pulls free a pair of poorly folded sweat pants and matching sweatshirt, both emblazoned with the Ericson’s Academy logo.</p><p>Threadbare at the knees and frayed at the cuffs, the shabby sweats are at least a size too big as they sag low on Louis’s slim hips, even cinching the drawstring as tightly as he can tie it doesn’t entirely eliminate the gap between the waistband and his skin, but it’ll have to do. As he takes the three porch steps in a single bound he inhales the chaotic tangle of rancid scents polluting the air. Blood; both fresh and alive and stagnant and dead smothers the clean sweet earthiness of damp dirt rising and mildew which itself also mingles with the warm scents of both Violet and Clementine dancing on the breeze.</p><p>His rabbit quick pulse throbs behind his eyes, keeping time with the beat of his heart pulsing inside his chest- banging, pounding and trying to escape its cage of ribs. Slowly, Louis closes his fingers around the doorknob and listens to the murmurs of panic and pained whimpers as they escape through the space between the door and its frame. The rough metal, dull with age and greasy fingermarks, feels warm in his palm as he eyes the weather-beaten paint that is now slightly bubbly and flaking, the wood beneath it beginning to swell and rot after a near-decade of neglect, as though he could see right through it.</p><p>“Oh, shit! Shit, shit, shit… Fuck!” It’s clear by the cracking in Violet’s voice that fear has found her. It takes Violet’s smokey tones and softens the rasp, making her sound more akin to a small child, lost and frightened, than her usual jagged self. “Oh, God, there’s so much blood! Why is there so much blood? Clem? <em> Clem! </em> You can’t close your eyes, Clem. <em> Please! </em> You have to stay awake.”</p><p>With a long and dry creaking groan, one that brings with it a chill to his spine and a spike of adrenaline that surges through Louis’s system so fast he feels as though he might vomit. The teen swings the door wide with enough force to leave splinters and sharp fragments of rotten wood raining down beneath his bare feet. For a moment he simply stands there, his breathing suspended, and tasting the way that the saliva in his mouth thickens to a rancid paste flavoured with the mingling scents of blood and panic and mildew.</p><p>The dust motes swirl in the receding light like the ripples in the stream whenever a fish flicks its tail or nips at an insect skimming the surface, disturbed by Louis’s careful movements as he pads deeper into the silver-blue gloom that creeps from the corners as the door latches shut again. His pupils dilate, taking in as much of the scarce lighting- that only partially dissipates the darkness -as they can and his vision sharpens as it falls upon his missing packmate hunching over his equally missing friend.</p><p>“Vi,” His flaring nostrils catch the startled little spike in the blonde’s scent as he slowly pads a little closer. He crouches low and spaces his arms either side of his hips, palms angled up in a placating gesture as his feet slide rather than lift over the boards in an effort to soften his approach. “I need you to talk to me, okay?”</p><p>His eyes sweep the ground as his voice croons calmly, soothingly. He’s closer now and can see the fresh, sticky blood smeared in streaks beneath Violet’s feet; he can see Clementine’s slumping form as it leans back against the shelf racks, her head lolling limp and loose to her chest, crumpled like a broken marionette puppet cut free from her strings. “Tell me what happened?”</p><p>“I don’t… I-” Something suspicious and wary flickers in the eyes that slant toward him from over her shoulder, wilder than any rabbit caught in a snare or deer trapped beneath teeth and claws, only to instantly flash away again as she lowers her gaze and turns back to her task. “She’s bitten, Lou. She got fucking bit!”</p><p>As the world around him slows down and nothing in his head makes sense, Louis simply stands and stares at Violet, watching how her palms press against mangled flesh, desperately trying to hold the gaping wound closed even as her fingers slip through the warm, fresh blood jettisoning up from between them.</p><p>He follows the trail of dark crimson as it slides down her wrists in macabre ribbons and sees how it drips slowly from her skin in thick syrupy globules that patter against the floor like some sort of morbid rain before it seeps into the whorls in the grain to stain the wood copper.</p><p>And he blinks slowly, his entire body unmoving as though it’s stalled and all his brain can do is drown in panic, flooding itself with the echoes of Violet’s words.</p><p>
  <em> She’s bit. She’s bit. Clem’s fucking bit, Lou! </em>
</p><p>“There’s just so much fucking blood…” Violet’s red slick hands slip again and, this time, Louis is afforded a chance to glimpse the source of Clementine’s bleeding. Silently identifying the elongated oval shape that is lain over the space between brunette’s shoulder and throat in the short moment before the blonde clamps her shaking hands down over the wound again. “I-I can’t stop her bleeding... How do I stop her bleeding!?”</p><p>Louis can hear Violet’s words, but he doesn't move. Her desperate commentary simply flits uselessly around inside his skull, careening into and bouncing off of his wildly racing thoughts before the tangled mess plummets into a dark, encroaching void of distress.</p><p>That bite didn’t look human to him.</p><p>“Louis?”</p><p>His stomach suddenly lurches and twists as his insides curdle like milk soured with lemon and, in the back of his throat, there is a strange and nauseating little rush that burns cold and bitter against his tongue as he realizes- that the bite looks canine.</p><p>“<em>Louis!? </em>Help. Me!”</p><p>Violet’s voice, desperately crying his name, is so loud and sharp that it immediately takes him to his knees, his churning insides contracting cold as he lands. His range of vision narrows down to simply stare at his friend’s bloodied hands as they struggle harder and harder to hold torn flesh together as his heart beats faster, harder, and diverts all of his blood away from his muscles and floods ice into his guts instead.</p><p>Then he glances up and notices the glimmering line of liquid amber peeking from between thick, barely parted lashes. He spies the ashy hue leeching the healthy tone from the brunette’s slack cheeks and the shadows that deepen around her eyes like a corpse, but it’s the creeping blue tinting the corners of Clementine’s lips that has Louis thrusting the still balled up sweatshirt against Violet’s chest and his hands quickly coated in sticky scarlet as he replaces her grip with his own. His larger palms span wider than the blonde’s had and his grip is firmer as his fingers pinch around the pulsing puncture wounds, the blood already flowing less thickly over his digits as Clementine breathes a low groan of discomfort.</p><p>“Is she…” Violet’s stare is uncomfortable and heavy with poorly hidden guilt lurking in the depths of lacklustre eyes. She watches but doesn’t see how her fingers, stained in Clementine’s blood, tighten around the soft material in her hands and her breathing suddenly shifts into shallow and constricted huffs as she finishes quietly. “Is she going to be okay?”</p><p>Louis’s dark eyes flick to the side to watch her, but only for a moment before they shift back to study Clementine’s face, a grim line firming his lips as he listens to the wet little gasps rattling from the brunette’s throat. “I don’t know, Vi.”</p><p>He cringes when he hears Violet’s broken little whimper and wishes <em> so </em> badly that he could say something, anything, more certain about the brunette’s condition to reassure her. But he can’t. The best he can do is to keep her as calm and as focused as he can and try to stop Clementine from bleeding out inside the ramshackled old cabin. “You should put that on. Get yourself warmed up and then find me something to use to keep Clem warm and comfortable.”</p><p>As she threads her arms into too-long sleeves and tugs the hem down past her hips, covering as much of her nakedness as possible, Violet twists on her knees and reaches for the blanket that Clementine had used earlier to swaddle around her own shoulders and passes it to Louis, her eyes aimed to the floor as she feels the fabric slowly slide from her fingers. She can’t stand to look at Clementine barely breathing with closed eyes, unable to re-engage with life outside of her own body, without feeling the hot rush of tears rising behind her eyes, stinging the corners and blurring her vision. It feels as though there are steel bands wrapped around her ribs that sharply squeeze each inhale from her lungs with every weakening sound that whispers from between Clementine’s lips.</p><p>It’s all her fault. Clementine is bitten and bleeding, likely dying, and it’s <em> her </em> fault. She hadn’t been able to control her fear, her panic, and now Clementine is paying for <em> her </em> mistakes.</p><p>And she hates it. She hates it all so, <em> so </em> much.</p><p>It starts as a discomfort in her chest, a feeling in her brain... and then it sets in deeper. It makes her eyes feel stretched and dried out in their sockets, her tongue suddenly feels too large to fit in her throat and her mouth floods with saliva, even with the rising burn of vomit scorches into her throat.</p><p>“What happened, Vi?” Louis’s hands move, fast and efficient, as he holds Clementine’s sagging body against his and eases the blanket around her shoulders. The bleeding has lessened now; he can still feel the warm oozing sensation through the blanket beneath his palms but either the pressure that he applies is finally stemming the sticky rush from pushing up between his fingers or Clementine has precious little blood left for her heart to pump out of her body. “Why did you bite her?”</p><p>“I… I-” Caught off-guard by the calm gentleness in Louis’s voice, Violet feels her words cram up tight in her throat, choking her voice off into a feeble croak and when he looks to her with his puppy soft eyes all that she feels is the urge to run. To escape and to hide.</p><p>But she has no desire to move and her eyes find no refuge for her to hide away in. And, if there had been any strength to be found in her legs, the weak rolling of the brunette’s head that ripples into the corner of her vision would have been all that was needed to keep her feet rooted in place.</p><p>“Please… Don’t be… don’t be mad with her, Louis-” Clementine’s voice comes as such a small and fragile little sound like a sigh, lost amid a storm, that Violet’s heart splinters inside her chest. But it’s the barest whisper of a smile that struggles onto Clementine’s lips as she finds and fights to hold the green crystalline eyes that breaks the blonde down and the words just come tumbling out in a jumbled mess.</p><p>“She saw me and I-”</p><p>“It was my… my fault. I shouldn’t have… have followed-”</p><p>“I panicked and shifted. I tried to stop it but I couldn’t-”</p><p>“Tri… Trial by Teeth…”</p><p>“And I bit her!” The admission passes through Violet like a hurricane, shattering her voice under the rush of raw emotion as she pushes her face into her hands. “Oh, God Louis, I didn’t want to! I <em> didn’t! </em> I tried to stop her but she… she just wouldn’t listen to me! It was just like the first time all over again, she wouldn’t let me stop!”</p><p>“So… so, you can’t be mad.” It takes her a tremendous effort and almost more strength than she has left, but Clementine grits her teeth and sucks in a painful breath between them and carefully stretches out the toe of her boot to gently press against Violet’s knee. Still reaching out to comfort the blonde even as her lashes flutter shut and her chin slowly lolls to her chest, the last frail, fraying string scarcely holding it in place. “Your secret… it’s still safe. Vi, she… she kept it safe.”</p><p>“I know, Clem. I’m not...” Louis’s hand finds Clementine’s without a thought, and he almost and recoils just as fast - beneath his fingers, her skin is so cold and her erratic pulse skips loose and thready. “Clem?”</p><p>“Just… Just take care of AJ for me…” The brunette breathes, her voice fading into rattling wet gurgles. “He’s so… so little.”</p><p>With the last of her energy draining from her body and that valiant little thread finally breaking, Clementine slumps down until she’s less sitting and more laying among the bags of fertilizer, long since forgotten on the bottom shelf. The once warming, honeyed hues of her eyes dulling as her lashes flicker once, then twice then close.</p><p>“Oh, my God… Lou?”</p><p>Louis can hear the crack in Violet’s voice and he knows that if he were to glance back to her he would see how she balls up her fists and presses them to her mouth, he would see how her chin trembles and her eyes swim; and he knows that, even though she doesn’t want to, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from crying. From breaking down and sobbing just as she had so many years ago.</p><p>He tells himself that by not looking back at her, he’s allowing her the tiniest amount of privacy to process her grief…</p><p>… and he tells himself that it’s not because he’s curiously watching the faintest shimmer of shadows shifting beneath Clementine’s closed eyes, or how he is detecting the barest notes of something just barely different creeping into the brunette’s scent.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Bloody Secrets and Winter Truths</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ahead of her is an end, her end. The wolves have driven her into a shallow gully; deep enough to corral her but not so deep that she misses the approach of the final two in the pack.</p><p>She is caught.</p><p>And as the pack, now five strong, circle in with low growls in their throats and dark lips that stretch back away from gleaming teeth she knows that she is to be killed. Her sides heave as she pants, her wide almond-shaped eyes slide as a liquid over the predatory forms, following the slow approach of the two fresh wolves from above and either side.</p><p>One wolf, her pelt thick and in hues of pale creams and caramel tips, glides silently to the edge of the embankment. Eyes of river water green watch as her companion mirrors her positioning on the doe’s other flank.</p><p>Golden wolf eyes, the colour of liquid amber, lift to catch the doe’s fearful gaze. The tawny colour standing bright and clear against her coat of mahogany. Rich and deep, the subtle hues of warm earth and vibrant gloss of leaves kissed by autumn rains softens the dark colouring as it reaches around to the she-wolf’s underbelly.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry for the delay, I've been dealing with a lot in my RL stuff so I'll keep the note short.</p><p>There is a lot of dialogue and lore to unpack in this chapter, so I'm hoping that it still turned out enjoyable but I have mixed feelings about it personally.</p><p>The lore that I have in place is my own personal werewolf lore. It's details I have been building for years. It will also explain why the injury that Violet received from a walker in the first chapter had no effect.</p><p>I hope you enjoy the chapter and, as always kudos and comments are greatly received and appreciated.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u"> A Wolf in Human Clothing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="u"> Chapter. 3: Bloody Secrets and Winter Truths. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>Under the bite of wintry air and a sky that has given up its brilliant summer blues and the rich fall palette of fire and golds, lay a barren landscape and the monochromatic tones of snowstorms that dance upon the horizon. A tiny and thin patch of green pushes valiantly through the fresh powdered snow. The last of this year’s grass reaching out for the remnants of warm days long since past only to meet with a frost that nips and curls its blades. Spectres of oak and sycamore stand stark and naked against the sky, while the ice-kissed willows bow to the winds and shiver. Delicate little swirls of frigid air and arctic crystals twirl and twist, twining around thin, skeletal branches as a stray deer nibbles at the soft bark.</p><p>Her wide ears, ever-moving and ever-alert swivel forward with the soft sounds of snow shifting- sliding from barren limbs with a hollow swish and wet thumps. They flick backwards to track every sound, a crunch of snow or a twig that snaps somewhere off in the distance before she raises her head from stripping a new line of bark to chew. Errant snowflakes stick to her lashes as the large, glassy eyes and her monocular vision beneath reads every snowdrift, every suggestion of movement that shifts through silver tinted shadows and dances with the cold breath of the season; hoping to spot and evade death before death finds and takes her.</p><p>For a brief and fleeting moment, the world is still and silent. A picturesque and serene winter wonderland. And in the next, the shadows that had been previously seen to be only as shadows, break from the tree line and stalk toward her. The greyed lines solidifying into predatory forms that cut off her retreat back to her herd with a wall of teeth and claw. The deer simply freezes and stares, her long legs partly splayed and the white underside of her tail flashing as it stands tall. But she is still only for an instant before her instincts kick in, seeing her wheel around and flee as her panicked bleats echo like a starter’s pistol for the chase to begin.</p><p>The large, silver-grey wolf raises his head and brays the beginning of the hunt for all of his pack to hear before he plunges into a run just a short distance behind the doe. He keeps her in his sights but has no urgency in his loping gait. He knows that just his presence behind her will be enough to keep her running and he knows that her thin legs and narrow hooves are not suited for pursuit through the deeper snowbanks- the very same snowbanks to where he herds her. Once or twice he sees her attempt to break and veer toward the trees, towards shallower snow and toward her herd where she would find safety, but she very quickly falls back to centre as a flash of black fur pushes in on her from the right and a line of red-orange flanks her from the left.</p><p>Bounding as best she can through the soft winter blanket, the doe is already tiring. While the wolves are designed for this terrain with their large, round paws and spreading toes acting as snowshoes to hold them atop the crunching snow; she is not. Her sharp hooves cut through the delicate powder and strike against the hard ground beneath, turning each stride into an exhausting leap that throws both herself and a wave of crystalized water forward. Ahead she can see where the snow lessens and thins, while still far from ideal it would make for much better running conditions for her than what she struggles through now.</p><p>She pants with exhaustion and shrieks in terror as the dark wolf darts in close again. His deadly teeth snapping dangerously near to her heels and startles her to turn, to run down into a shallow ditch that had once held a small stream. The grey wolf turns with her, remaining on her hide as his long limbs devour the ground as ravenously as his jaws will her flesh should she fall. The other two keep pace with her from atop the banks, pressing in closer the higher the ground rises as panic settles in doe’s simple thoughts.</p><p>Ahead of her is an end, <em>her </em>end. The wolves have driven her into a shallow gully; deep enough to corral her but not so deep that she misses the approach of the final two in the pack.</p><p>She is caught.</p><p>And as the pack, now five strong, circle in with low growls in their throats and dark lips that stretch back away from gleaming teeth she knows that she is to be killed. Her sides heave as she pants, her wide almond-shaped eyes slide as a liquid over the predatory forms, following the slow approach of the two fresh wolves from above and either side.</p><p>One wolf, her pelt thick and in hues of pale creams and caramel tips, glides silently to the edge of the embankment. Eyes of river water green watch as her companion mirrors her positioning on the doe’s other flank.</p><p>Golden wolf eyes, the colour of liquid amber, lift to catch the doe’s fearful gaze. The tawny colour standing bright and clear against her coat of mahogany. Rich and deep, the subtle hues of warm earth and vibrant gloss of leaves kissed by autumn rains softens the dark colouring as it reaches around to the she-wolf’s underbelly.</p><p>For a moment the world is almost silent as predators and prey simply watch one another with only the rapid wheezing from the doe’s lungs to stir the air. Overhead, dove grey clouds pull in tight and low, edged in darkness and heavy with the promise of fresh snow, a purity to cleanse that soon to be soiled. </p><p>The pale she-wolf’s ears flatten to her skull and a low rumble echoes in her chest as her lips curl high from her teeth and she hunkers down in preparation for a lunge. Fright consumes the doe’s mind as she takes a step backwards in retreat, the large grey wolf that had followed her into the arroyo forgotten until she feels his teeth sinking into her hock.</p><p>Her scream is high and shrill, as is the wolf’s yelp as he’s dislodged from her limb with one swift kick. Bright droplets scatter as she turns and shies backwards, her warm blood spilt and cooling rapidly in the crystal snow, turning to a dilute pink against the clean white. Her rolling eyes are wild. The oval pupils dilating in panic as her heart races. And, with slick crimson oozing from her wound to roll sluggishly through her tan hide, she limps further away from the grey wolf as his thick coat bristles. His lips curling as he snarls and drives her closer to the steep incline of the bank.</p><p>Closer to the pair of she-wolves atop of the embankment, where powerful muscles are coiled tight in their shoulders and haunches, tense and ready to launch. And as dark claws sink deep into the looser top layer of snow, sending a wet clump sliding down to thump behind the doe’s heels, the reaching shadows scattered amid the skeletal tree line ripple. The cold winter’s light winking off of a dented metallic maw of a rifle as another predator prowls unseen.</p><p>“Holy shit,” The man bracing the rifle breathes. “Ey, Errol! You seein’ this right? Look at the size of them fuckers.”</p><p>His companion, Errol, grins around the maple twig clenched between his teeth. He holds his own gun high and steady as he peers through the cracked scope. “Yeah, I see ‘em. I got the red in my crosshairs. Her fur’ll fetch a goddamned ransom at the next checkpoint.”</p><p>The first man, and the elder of the two, slants his gaze toward Errol and snorts snidely. “Gotta hit the bitch first, kid.” He returns to peering through his own scope as an ugly twist creeps onto his dry, frost-nipped lips as he smirks. “And if my memory ain’t gone completely to shit, I seem t’ recall that you ain’t managed to nail a shot yet.”</p><p>Rolling the chewed twig from one side of his mouth to the other, the younger man hawks and spits a thick globule of phlegm. Aiming to splatter the bottom of the other man’s boot with the mess… and missing. Earning himself and his already wounded pride a round of mocking laughter. “Y’know what, fuck you, Abel!”</p><p>With a final, derisive snort Abel continues. Blithely ignoring his companion’s insulted protests as he pushes himself up onto his feet and brushes the clumps of wet snow from his knees. “Yeah the furs’ll be nice and all, but what I really want is that deer they got cornered. She’ll feed us easy for the rest of this hair-brained trip an’ then some.” He slings his rifle strap over his shoulder and digs one hand into his pocket, fishing out a rolled-up cigarette that he then clamps between his stained teeth before he returns the same hand to root around in his pocket again, this time pulling a lighter from its depths.</p><p>“I’m gonna circle round the other side,” He drawls, striking a flame from the device and putting it to the cigarette’s end. “Looks like the little cream one’s gonna move in t’ make the kill. Soon as that deer goes down, you an’ me’re gonna fire a shot into the air to scare the pack off before they shred her. Then I’ll go in and drag the meat out. Y’got it?”</p><p>“Mhmm,” Errol grunts the non-committal sound from somewhere low in his throat as his index finger just barely tenses over the trigger. The muzzle of his rifle is still angled upon the red wolf in the clearing. The menacing maw bearing down and following the animal’s slow prowl as it carries her from one end of the embankment to the other. Drawing in a single, slow breath and with one eye sliding shut, the younger man readies his shot.</p><p>“Errol!”</p><p>The sharp snap of his name catches the young man unawares and sends him jerking back a step, his rifle swinging wide and his shot ruined.</p><p>“Jesus, fuck!” Hazel eyes blink open, pupils widening in surprise before they narrow sharply as he swings around to aim a glower over to the other man. “What!?”</p><p>“What did I jus’ say to ya, boy?” Abel growls, tendrils of blue smoke drifting in thick coils from behind his crooked lips. “We want the meat, not the furs! So keep yer fuckin’ finger off the trigger ‘til they make the kill.”</p><p>“Alright! Alright, I fuckin’ got it - Christ!” Lowering his battered firearm, Errol pushes his hand through his hair. His fingers roughly rake the shaggy tangles of sandy brown away from his brow and out of his eyes as his nose wrinkles with disgust for the pungent stench burning in his nostrils. “Y’know, they’re gonna smell that nasty-ass smoke of yours long before you even get your manky old ass down there.”</p><p>“You really ain’t ever done this before have ya, kid?” There’s an arrogance that clings to the older man’s gnarled lips, just as the tobacco stains do to his fingers and teeth. “That’s why you approach against the wind, so your stink don’t travel to whatever it is yer huntin’. That’s what <em> upwind </em> means, genius.”</p><p>He takes one final pull on the hand-rolled coffin nail before he flicks it, end-over-end, against a young tree frosted in a silver sheen and shivering against the winter chill. The crimson embers scatter as they strike chilled bark before being dowsed in the snow where they land. “And, I mean it, boy. Keep it off the trigger ‘til they take her down. I don’t want an ass fulla buckshot ‘cause of you not controllin’ yer fingers.”</p><p>As Errol’s mouth opens, his sharp tongue ready to hurl some choice words and scathing insults of his own back at his companion, there’s an almighty din from the beasts commandeering the snowy trench. The doe’s frightened screams pierce and shred the bitter winter’s air as savage snarls peppered with excited barks rise from the pack. The chilling sounds bounce and echo through the leaf-bare forest in a terrifyingly disorientating way. Ensuring that the origin of the sound would be nigh on impossible to pinpoint<em> if </em>the two men had not already discovered the animal’s whereabouts.</p><p>Goose flesh races along Errol’s spine and the youth struggles to suppress the shiver that follows. The tiny bumps that rise sting at his skin with a far more barbaric response to the savage sounds of the wolf attack than they ever had the frigid winds that wind around his neck.</p><p>“Aw, shit!” Abel groans. Rolling his rifle’s strap down his arm and into his hand, the scruffy man brings the butt to his shoulder and squints through the telescopic sight snapped to the muzzle. “She’s down an’ they’re all movin’ in on her now,” He thumbs the safety catch off his own weapon before he chances a glance over to his young companion. “Y’ better move yer ass if you wanna eat tonight, kid.”</p><p>Plunging clumsily through the knee-deep snowdrifts and with ice-cold slush seeping through their thick pants and sliding into their boots, the two men spring forwards. Ahead they can see the wolves emerging from the shallow opening to the gully. The first to emerge fully is the darkest of the animals. The black wolf pads a few steps further out, his ears perked and twitching as his tongue lolls comically from between his jaws, the heat of his panting breath misting the air.</p><p>“Holy…” Abel scrambles to halt his own movements as he throws out a hand to grab the hood of Errol’s thick coat. Preventing the hot-headed youth from barreling past him and directly into the path and sights of the pack. “... shit! Them mutts’re bigger than I thought.”</p><p>From their previous vantage point, the wolves had appeared almost indistinguishable from others. But now that they were nearer and no longer peering through the distorting lenses of their scopes, it was clear that these animals were larger than regular grey wolves. Larger, and moving with an intelligence and a purpose that feels almost human. From behind the midnight beast of a wolf, pad the brown and cream pair. And, while they are smaller, their size is still formidable; should they stand on their hind paws, their front ones would easily reach any man’s shoulders and their jaws are large enough to quickly destroy his throat.</p><p>As the two she-wolves press further out, their bright eyes scanning the horizon from either side of the first wolf, the final pair -the red and the grey- retreat tail first from the narrow snow-banked trench. Dragging the surprisingly cleanly killed doe behind them.</p><p>Confused by the behaviour this pack displays, Errol frowns and grunts a quiet, “huh.” And, as Abel readies his rifle, the muzzle aimed sky-bound, the wind suddenly shifts. The frigid gust rips from their backs and scatters a thin cloud of powder from behind them, throwing their scents toward the animals. Immediately two dark and one liver coloured noses lift into the sudden flurry. Testing the wind and the new scents that travel upon it before all three canine heads snap toward the men in the snow in unison.</p><p>But only for an instant. For the moment that man and beast lock gazes, dark lips are pulled tight and teeth are bared in a silent challenge. A challenge that is met by a loud clap, the shout of a rifle splitting the air as its round is spat harmlessly into the clouds. It cracks like thunder and echoes around the tundra’s brittle wilds as the stench of burning gunpowder and flame belches into the sky and sends the pack scattering.</p><p>And everything that follows next is a chaotic mess of movement and broken sounds.</p><p>Abel, with his shot squeezed off and the pack bolting, dives through the almost knee-deep snow to claim the meat. Only for the man to freeze in his tracks as the second gunshot rips through the air, the bullet whizzing past him and toward the running animals. A heartbeat later an agonized yelp echoes across the snowy wasteland and the final fleeing wolf tumbles out of sight over the crest of the hill that the pack had been racing over. A deadly projectile punching through thick, fur and scattering hot blood into the snow as it falls.</p><p>“Didja see that shot, Abe?” Errol lowers his rifle and beams at his companion still halted in his tracks. His cheeks are red and frost burned but his eyes are alight with adrenaline and dance in boyish delight. “I think I nailed the fucker right in the back of the head.”</p><p>But Abel doesn’t share in the youth’s celebration. Not while his ribs feel like steel bands around his lungs, tight with panic, nor can he while fury roils in his belly, twisting and writhing like maggots.</p><p>“You stupid fuckin’ <em> stupid </em> li’l shit!” Crooked teeth bare in a snarl and heterochromatic eyes narrow. “What did I tell you? What did I fuckin’ tell <em> you!</em>?”</p><p>The delight in Errol’s expression dampens and the pride for his accuracy fades. Smothered by the hateful disdain and the tension that Abel wasn’t even trying to mask in his glowering face.</p><p>“One shot, kid!”</p><p>Errol stiffens himself militarily and clears his throat with an angry snort. “I did-”</p><p>“Into the fuckin’ <em> air! </em> ”</p><p>A small, bitter laugh escapes Errol’s lips as he hurls his own scathing glare right back at the older man. “What’s the big fucking deal?” He seethes. “The wolves are gone and we got you your meat, but fuck me for wanting something to trade, right? Fuck me for wanting shit like, oh, I don’t know, fucking weapons and enough ammunition to get us back home! You remember that fuckin’ nest fulla rotters on the way out, right? Well, we’re gonna need more than what we got on hand to get past them fucks an’ get back with our asses intact.”</p><p>Abel simply stands there and narrows his hard staring eyes that slowly blink. “All the more reason t’ listen to me when I’m telling ya ‘one shot’, kid.” His fists are balled, one pressed firmly against his thigh while the other clutches his rifle in a white-knuckled grasp. Still baring his unevenly yellow stained teeth, Abel turns on his heel and continues trudging through the snow before grumbling in a voice that was barely more human than a growl. “C’mon. Sooner we haul that deer back t‘camp, the sooner we drag our asses back out and gitcher your trophy wolf.”</p><p>Errol takes a single step toward his companion, slinging his own rifle higher over his shoulder as a wide smile attempts to catch his lips. “Yeah? You mean it?”</p><p><br/>Digging his hand into his pocket, Abel drags a fresh if slightly crushed, cigarette from the denim depths and clamps it between his teeth. “S’what I said ain’t it, kid.” The bright yellow flame from his lighter dances in his odd coloured eyes as curling wisps of smoke escape his crooked grin. “And besides, you’re gonna need the practice guttin’ and skinnin’ if you want a good price for that wolf hide of yours.” </p><p> </p><p>------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Hidden beneath the trailing branches of a young willow tree and pushing herself further into the holly bushes that encircle the trunk, Violet presses her cheek deeper into the slush and snow and whines. Her ears swivel and flick wildly following every sound around her. Pinpointing the position of each of her packmates as they grunt and whine through their own changes before pulling flat as the final echo of gunshot fades into an eerie silence and she braces for the agony that she knows is coming.</p><p>The pain that accompanies her shifts at the best of times is, at the very least, brutal. But it’s when the shifts come triggered by instinct and driven by the desire to survive, that she is almost convinced that her wolf intends to destroy her from the inside out.</p><p>She whines low in the back of her throat as the pain climbs up along her spine and demands to be felt, crushing her bones with an unbearable, unbeatable strength. It feels as though someone is reaching up inside her to snap her bones, to push and pull her organs around with bare hands as her anatomy warps and changes.</p><p>Her paws cut through the slush as they flatten into hands and feet. The thick claws pulling back beneath writhing flesh as long fingers and curling toes replace them to drag through the cold instead. Her clenched jaw throbs as it shortens and her gums burn as canine teeth recede and human ones move back into position. Every movement, every twitch and involuntary spasm causes some muscle or bone to ache. It’s so intense that by the time it’s over, Violet’s whole body feels like it has been beaten as she lay in the snow panting.</p><p>Every few moments, every few breaths, every new stirring of frigid air sends a new, sharp pain to flay her nerves and lance behind her eyes.</p><p>And she hates it. Hates the constant hunger and endless pain. Hates how her senses are wolf sharp even when she’s not in that form and hates how she feels limited and confined it makes her feel. But, what she hates most of all is how alien her own human form feels once the change reverses and she is left shivering, laying in the snow, vulnerable and afraid.</p><p>Slowly, gradually, with each tired pant, the searing pain releases its stranglehold on her body and instead her muscles begin to quiver as the cold winds seep their way into her blood. She closes her eyes. The black mists of fear that had swirled at the edges of her vision and threatened to rob her of her consciousness ebbs. And now, the new sensations that throb in her guts are derived more from exhaustion and hunger rather than injury. </p><p>And it sits there. Like a fat snake. Deep and warm. But not in a nice way. It pokes at her brain and plays with her mind. Showing her tantalizing glimpse of the doe lying dead in the centre of a crimson halo. It bites at her tongue and floods her mouth with saliva as it reminds her of the warming tang of blood and meat. It echoes the scratching and aching that she feels in every bone as it crawls through her empty insides. It slithers around inside her stomach and prods in her throat, mocking her and making her nauseous with the memory of how close she had been to a good meal.</p><p>There’s a slow, crunching sound that curls around her ears. Footsteps that break through the crisp layer of ice to sink through the softer, fluffier snow beneath it. And a voice that is warm and familiar and is relieving to hear as it calls out softly to her.</p><p>“Vi?” Sophie’s breath hangs pale against the numbing air and her cheeks are pink and rosy, nipped by frost and kissed by snow. In her hands, she clutches a bundle of clothing, holds it tightly against her chest.  Shielding her bounty in a valiant, albeit vain, effort to retain any of the warmth previously imbued into the fibres while the wintry gusts tangle and tousle her russet hair into sweat-damp knots.</p><p>She balances her weight on her toes and shuffles closer to the blonde. Invading her shelter as she raises an arm to hold back the low curtain of tendril-like leaves, her eyes skipping over the pale skin for signs of injury. “Oh, thank god you’re alright.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Violet pushes herself upright and tries to smile, even as the remnants of pain and fear prick at the corners of her eyes. “I’m okay,”</p><p>Her pale hands tremble and her fingers shake as they curl around the clothing that Sophie pushes into her grasp. Violet’s limbs ache and seize, and her teeth chatter as she yanks the sweatshirt over her head. She can feel the bitter cold more now. The ache in her muscles is no longer from the warming touches of adrenaline storming through her blood, but the freezing burn of frostbite. “Holy shit, Soph. Those assholes… they shot at us?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Tilting her head over her shoulder, Sophie watches the horizon for the rest of their group. “They did.”</p><p>Then the wind dies and the swaying throngs of the willow cease their rustling. And in that moment of absolute stillness, Sophie tips the fragile balance of momentary calmness and sends Violet’s world spiralling. “Vi, those assholes hit one of us.”</p><p>The gentleness of Sophie’s voice has Violet’s eyes snapping open and her insides contracting cold. And the sadness in the older girls ocean eyes leaves the blonde hyperventilating with clammy palms and a heart that is exploding inside her chest.</p><p>“Who?” The demand behind her words is weak, and Violet’s voice is laced with fear. It creeps over her skin and whispers in her thoughts as her mind races to recall the pack’s formation as they had fled. Sophie and Marlon had been running ahead of her… that left Louis and…</p><p>“Clementine?” Her tongue feels thick and her mouth sticky as she croaks. “Is she..? Where is she?”</p><p>“Clem’s fine,” Sophie assures her and Violet feels a little flutter of relief in her chest even as her stomach twists with guilt. “She’s fine. I saw her run past Marlon when we scattered. It wasn’t her…”</p><p>As Sophie’s voice trails off, Violet isn’t listening anymore. Her skin is crawling and her instincts are already screaming the name of the packmate hit. The packmate who had saved her life and then saved Clementine’s. The packmate her wolf viewed as her alpha despite Marlon’s position as pack leader.</p><p>Violet is barely on her feet before she’s already shoving her way past Sophie. Ignoring how the sharp holly leaves prick her bare feet and scratch her cheek. Breaking into a run as soon as she’s through the willow tree’s protective canopy as the redhead’s final quiet words eddy around her ears.</p><p>“It was Louis. Oh, god, Vi. They… they shot Louis.”</p><p> </p><p>------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>The campfire crackles and the bright ribbons of orange flames dance higher. Flickering wildly as a dribble of fat from the slab of roasting venison hits the twigs and throws out a scattering of sparks into the snow. The small group of men huddle closer to the crackling embers, filling their mouths with chunks of roasted meat as the heat from the fire warms their fronts while their backs are left to brace against the frigid air.</p><p>“So, wolves, huh?” One man queries. His jaw still working as he reaches his chilled hands out and saws another hunk from the roast. Settling back in his seat he swipes his arm across his mouth once before immediately tearing into his second helping. “Thought they’d all been wiped out by the dead by now.”</p><p>Abel gnaws on the last of his own meal, swallows and belches. “Nah, Sav. Wolves were cagey as all hell even before all this shit. Gotta be even more cagey now.” He pushes his fingers into his vest pocket for a cigarette, smearing venison grease against his clothes. “And these were some big fuckers. Like, real big. Could tear my head clean offa my shoulders if they wanted to. So it ain’t like they’re strugglin’ out there against t’shamblers.” Abel pauses, his oddly coloured eyes cast down and narrowed as he focusses on the cigarette tumbling between his fingers. Then he grunts and places it between his teeth, patting down his pockets for his lighter. “And, I dunno, somethin’ was off. There was somethin’ in the way they moved and looked at ya. Somethin’...”</p><p>“Intelligent?”</p><p>The new voice has Abel swinging his head around and aiming his scowl over Savile’s shoulder. His hardened expression on his craggy features is far colder than the wintry gusts whipping at their clothing as he glares at a second man.</p><p>The man is of the distinguished type, somehow managing to look both young and old at the same time. His dark hair, touched with silver, tumbles to his ears in neat, close-cropped waves and his skin is still firm and smooth; the faintest of laughter lines crease the corners of his eyes and barely dimple his cheeks. He has the most unusual Irish eyes – a delicate periwinkle blue that darkens to a steely grey with the shift in light and shadows. He is a man who is fitter looking than his companions - his wide shoulders and narrow waist tell of a lean body hidden beneath his wintry garb. He holds a canteen to his lips and the expression that he levels at the raggedy looking man is serious but not aggressive.</p><p>Abel snorts through his nose as he crouches close to the campfire. Using the leaping flames to light his cigarette rather than continuing to dig through his pockets for his lighter. “Wolves’ve always been smart, Al.”</p><p>The man’s blue eyes darken, flashing coldly as his jaw visibly tightens around his retort. “Alden.”</p><p>Cracked lips curl and crooked teeth flash as Abel crunches through the snow and returns to his stump. “Well, ‘lah-di-dah’, <em> Alden </em>.” Inhaling rich notes of tobacco laced with the bitter burn of the bible page wrapper down into his lungs, Abel closes his eyes slowly before he speaks again. Exhaling his words on tendrils of smoke and his own rancid breath. “You were what, some kinda hotshot Professor before the world ended? Humanities or some kinda useless bullshit, right?”</p><p>“Anthropology.” Screwing the top back onto his canteen and stashing it back into his pack Alden adds. “Specifically the study of our cultural evolution. I was… <em> am </em>the lead authority on how our society has adapted the symbolisms and the mythologies of ancient cultures into our own.”</p><p>The academic drops his heavy pack at his feet. He keeps his head lowered as he slides his gaze over to his companions and takes note of how both Abel and Savile’s eyes are fixed on him. How the jaundiced organs are dull and vacant and vaguely glazed, almost as though the man’s words have reached them but their primitive brains couldn’t quite puzzle them out.</p><p>Alden sighs and picks up his lowered eyes with the wariness of one who is fatigued by the presence of those with inferior intellect. Raising his eyebrows as he mutters bitterly a layman’s version of his words. “The study of myths and legends and how humanity has integrated these into our culture over the centuries. How we personify the baser and less civilized elements of human nature as animalistic.”</p><p>As his words ebb into nothingness, the hollow void that fills the atmosphere is as stark as the wintry forest surrounding them. Stark and empty and silent, even the winds have ceased its whipping at their clothes and toying with the campfire. Until loud mocking brays of laughter clap through the silence like a gunshot.</p><p>“Myths and legends?” Savile laughs a high cold cackle that pierces the smoky air. “Sounds like a one-way ticket to a lifetime of cripplin’ debt, jus’ to study fairytales t’me.”</p><p>Abel roars his own laughter into the air on a plume of blue and grey. “Don’t it just?”</p><p>He taps the ash from the tip of his cigarette with a chewed fingernail before he returns it back between his teeth. Smirking at the expression of indignation twisting up Alden’s features. “Alright, Prof. Alright, I’ll bite. Where’re you tryin’ to take this chat? You gonna try ‘personifying’ wolf thinkin’ as human thinkin’? This is ain’t some fuckin’ movie or TV show where them wolves are anythin’ more than just oversized timber-mutts. This is the real world.”</p><p>“True. This <em> is </em> the ‘real’ world.” Alden says carefully. Hating that he finds himself nervously gnawing on the inside of his cheek as he levies his thoughts against the words he wants to say. “And, with all that we’ve seen and lived through, would it be so far-fetched to think that there are other things out there that we didn’t think could be?”</p><p>“Wait, you mean like…” From his moss coated seat across the campfire Errol leans closer, his voice low and hushed. The earthy tones in his hazel irises deepened by the warm glow of the flames while the olive hues ignite with a spark of curiosity and unashamed interest. “Y’think that maybe, the wolf I shot at coulda been a werewolf?”</p><p>“It’s possible,” Alden says, ignoring the snorts and jeerings of the other two men. “Shape-shifters. Skin-walkers. Lycanthropes. Rougarou. There are countless names for such creatures. Countless similarities spanning across all cultures. Translations into almost every modern language, and a history that is intertwined with our own that dates back to 60 AD. Corroborating stories, plausible details, all of which lends support to the theory that their existence is rooted in much more than simple folklore. I was once part of a study -”</p><p>“Jesus Christ, come offa it, Al.” The fire crackles and the flames lick higher into the air as Savile rakes the dying embers aside and feeds more kindling into the heart. Light and shadows cast out by the flickering glow dance across his face, deepening the creases of his frown into bottomless gullies. “Werewolves ain’t real. They’re a god damned Hollywood monster, nuthin’ more. Hell, y’keep up with all this crazy talk an’ t’next thing y’all be tellin’ me is that t’hickey that the kid’s been hidin’ ever since we left camp’s a goddamned love nip from a vampire and not some broad he’s been shackin’ up with.”</p><p>“My name. Is. <em> Alden! </em> Not, Al!” Alden spits through a clenched jaw. Hooded eyes, glacial and steely, mirror Savile’s own scorn. “And we’re already surviving in a world that none of us had ever believed<em> could </em>happen outside of a movie. Living alongside the ravenous, reanimated corpses of the deceased! So, what is it that you find so difficult about being receptive to the possibility of there being other things out there?”</p><p>Savile’s fingers curl tightly around the newest handful of kindling as he hurls a bladed retort through grinding teeth, his jaw set so tightly it’s as if it were wired shut. “Because yer talkin’ outcha fuckin’ ass, some bullshit fairytales about people changin’ inta fuckin’ animals!”</p><p>“Bullshit fairytales that transcend across all races and cultures as well as religious beliefs!”</p><p>“Alright then, <em> Alden </em> ,” Savile turns his muddied gaze to the academic first, then he offers the man a mouthful of teeth and spite disguised as a smile. Then his gun slung across his shoulder jerks and swings wide as he rolls his torso around, the strap sliding partway down his bicep as he sneers. “Riddle me this, smart guy. Y’all ever actually<em> seen </em>a wolfman before? Outside of yer textbooks and sprouts runnin’ ‘round in Halloween costumes?”</p><p>“In my old settlement. Before it fell. One of the scavenging teams had been ambushed by a pair of survivors. A man and his boy.” Every word Alden speaks is clipped. Punching into the air through a rigid jaw and teeth that are clamped tight. “The pair had been tracking our group for hours. Hunting them. When they attacked, the boy was killed outright but the man evaded capture and bolted. By the time the group caught up with him he wasn’t<em> himself </em>anymore. He had… changed.”</p><p>“Wait a sec. Changed?” Abel shifts in his seat and sucks down the final drag of his cigarette before tossing the end into the climbing flames. “Whaddya mean when y’say changed? Like...”</p><p>“There was a wolf. A huge wolf. Standing there, waiting for them.” Alden glances toward Savile and scowls at the resting stare he receives. It wasn’t so much the coldness in the elongated eye contact that he found so detestable, but the dismissively vacant look that accompanied it. “Stare or don’t, it does not change the fact that the team found no evidence of blood on the ground. No evidence of the man they’d been pursuing, either. Just that animal. Standing there. Watching them through eyes with a human’s intelligence behind them. And when he attacked, the animal was smart. Very smart. Avoiding the gunshots, killing two of the team before the rest could even think of how to subdue him and bring back to the compound. A perfect amalgamation of man and beast.”</p><p>“Can you imagine the exhilaration I felt,” Alden takes a moment to pause and swallow. He observes his companions with the cool detachment of a stranger. Taking in their slackened jaws and the sudden fascination in his words with an aloof and judgmental slide of his eyes before he slowly allows his lids to close. “To be placed in charge of studying a creature like that? How much I learned from studying him. The amazing things that I witnessed.” Basking in their attention and knowing that it was his words that now commanded it, Alden hums through his nose and allows the shadows of a twisted smile to touch his mouth before he continues, his voice almost wistful. “Lycanthropes don’t turn when they’re bitten. They don’t turn when they die.”</p><p>The silence that follows his declaration lay on Alden’s skin like poison and his blood beneath it itches with irritation. The lack of excitable chatter that he had expected his words to garner hisses and twists and wriggles around in his guts like a writhing, heaving mass as he cracks his lashes to investigate the lack of enthusiasm from his audience.</p><p>To his left, Savile - tasked with keeping the campfire lit - sits as close as he dares to the flames as he feeds another handful of kindling into the glowing centre. The golden light thrown out by the fire licks smudges of shadow into the creases of his skin and threads merry highlights of grey in his beard. To his right, Abel simply sits with his arms folded and his unsettling heterochromatic gaze fixated on Alden’s face.</p><p>Errol, however, appears to be fully captivated by his words. The youth, just barely in his twenties, leans forward over his knees. His elbows propped against them, his chin cupped in his hands as his hazel eyes dance in the light of the flickering firelight. Wide and awestruck, filled with a childish wonder as he speaks in a low curious tone. “They don’t?”</p><p>Alden smiles then. A barely-there curl to one side of his mouth that scarcely dimples his cheek. It’s a smile that borders the line of arrogance and humbling. A smile that is impossible to decipher until his lips break further apart and his next words are delivered.</p><p>“No,” He says. His voice even and tone unbroken. “They don’t. There’s something in the molecular structure of the lycanthrope gene that combats the virus, overpowers and neutralizes it.”</p><p>There’s a flicker of movement on his peripherals. His other companions shifting their attention back to him, their curiosity in his words spiking. Alden eyes them sourly. His gaze unwavering as his expression twists into one of forced tolerance. “Before you all start allowing yourselves to believe this to be some kind of miracle cure for a walker bite, let me assure you that it isn’t. During our research, we lost many a good man and woman to testing precisely that. We took a number of our fatally wounded soldiers as well as victims who were bitten in sites where amputation was impossible and injected them with the lycanthrope’s blood. Most test subjects died and the process of reanimation still occurred. However, one man did survive the initial process, only surviving long enough for a guard to step in and put the poor rabid wretch out of its misery mid-transformation.”</p><p>“Mid-transformation?” Savile turns his head away from the fire and fixes his attention on the scholarly member of their group. “Y’mean like…”</p><p>“As in he was unable to complete the metamorphosis from human to canine and was simply a writhing mass of meat and broken bones. A grotesque, squealing beast caught halfway between each form. Putting a bullet into his skull was the quickest and kindest option.”</p><p>There’s a pause as Alden swallows. “Upon his own demise, the captive lycanthrope left behind only two insights into the limitations of his species existence. Firstly, the knowledge that not every bite victim survives their first change. That the human must accept the wolf otherwise the same molecular process that destroys the reanimation core of the walker virus occurs upon the nuclei of the human cells. Upon rejection, the lycanthrope gene overpowers and destroys first the human cells before continuing on to destroy itself.”</p><p>He tucks his gloveless fingers beneath his arms and hunched himself closer to the fire. His pale gaze is fixed, his facial muscles slack and loose as he watches every flare and spit emitted from the embers. “And secondly, that the passing of the genetic material from ‘bitten’ lycanthropes is a sex-linked trait. Meaning that it’s an inherited trait associated with one sex or the other. Carried by the chromosome that determines the individual’s biological gender. Bitten male lycanthropes can only pass the gene to other males and the same limitation applies to females. And the same process of rejection ensues should that restriction be breached. Only those born as natural lycanthropes carry the necessary biological material required to pass and successfully ‘sire’ new wolves of both sexes.”</p><p>The silence that falls between the men as they process their companion’s words is thick and chilling. Fear creeps through their blood and turns the comforting warmth of full bellies into fists of ice crushing their guts. They shiver and huddle closer together, grunting hateful words against the bite of the wintry gusts rather than admit to the unease taking root in their thoughts. Thoughts that turn every howl of the frigid winds into the hunting song of unseen wolves lurking in the shadows.</p><p>A cold night is pulling in fast around the group as the campfire’s flickering reach lessens. Already the clear skies are bruising into an inky darkness, devoid of even moonlight or stars; and the already bitter cold plummets into glacial. The harsh bite seeps through layered clothes and sinks in more than flesh deep. Their blood runs cold through their veins and fire-warmed bones turn chilled, any warmth that they had once possessed wicked away, leaving them with little more than the lingering memory of comfort.</p><p>With a cigarette clamped between his teeth and a gnarled hand cupped around the tiny flame trembling from his lighter, Abel hauls his creaking body up from his stump. Smoke curls in blue tendrils from his cracked lips as he digs the toe of his boot into the mix of slush and melting snow.</p><p>“Aight. Get up off yer asses.” He growls, sending a wave of the slush over the dying embers. “It’s gonna be a bitch of a night tonight an’ I ain’t fancyin’ the idea of sleepin’ rough.” He kicks a second wave and then a third before stomping his boot down over the still smoking pit. Smothering the last valiant efforts of the fire into nothing more than pitiful hisses and a single defiant pop. “We got another mile walk ahead o’ us before we hit the safe house. An’ we still gotta pick up the rest of the deer an’ the kid’s wolf hide.”</p><p>Abel narrows his eyes and hardens the glare that he throws Alden as he adds. “Then maybe you’ll see that our good buddy Alden the Brainiac here’s been havin’ us all on. That he’s a regular yarn spinner and that there ain’t nuthin’ but regular old timber wolves out there.”</p>
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